GALLIPOLJ 


HN   MASEFIELD 


GALLIPOLI 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


GALLIPOLI 


BY 

JOHN  MASEFIELD 

Author  of  "The  Everlasting  Mercy,"    "The 
Story  of  a  Round  House,"  etc. 


ILLUSTRA  TED 


Nrro  fork 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1916 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1916, 
By  JOHN  MASEFIELD 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1916. 
Reprinted  November,  twice,  December,  1916. 


DEDICATED 

WITH  DEEP  RESPECT  AND  ADMIRATION  TO 

General  Sir  Ian  Hamilton,  G.C.B.,  D.S.O. 

AND 

The  Officers  and  Men  under  his  Command, 
March  to  October,  1915. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


Map  No.  i 4 

Map  No.  2 38 

A  view  showing  Morte  Bay,  De  Tott's  Battery, 

and  the  Asiatic  Coast 46 

A  remarkable  view  of  V  Beach     ....      ^  48 

The  S.  S.  River  Clyde 52 

Some  of  the  barbed  wire  entanglements  near  Sed- 

dul-Bahr 56 

Exercising  mules 92 

Anzac  from  the  Sea 116 

View  of  Anzac,  looking  towards  Suvla   .      .      .134 

Map  No.  3 136 

A  "  long  focus  "  view  taken  over  the  top  of  our 

trenches  at  Anzac 144 

Australians  at  work  at  Anzac  two  days  before  the 

evacuation  took  place 146 

A  boatload  of  British  troops  leaving  the  S.  S.  Nile 

for  one  of  the  landing  beaches 148 

Inside  an  Australian  trench 162 

An  Australian  bringing  in  a  wounded  comrade  to 

hospital 224 


I 


Oliver  said  .  .  .  "I  have  seen  the  Saracens:  the 
valley  and  the  mountains  are  covered  with  them;  and 
the  lowlands  and  all  the  plains;  great  are  the  hosts  of 
that  strange  people;  we  have  here  a  very  little  com- 
pany." 

Roland  answered  ..."  My  heart  is  the  bigger  for 
that.  Please  God  and  His  holiest  angels,  France  shall 
never  lose  her  name  through  me." 

The  Song  of  Roland. 


GALLIPOLI 

A  little  while  ago,  during  a  short  visit  to 
America,  I  was  often  questioned  about  the  Dar- 
danelles Campaign.  People  asked  me  why 
that  attempt  had  been  made,  why  it  had  been 
made  in  that  particular  manner,  why  other 
courses  had  not  been  taken,  why  this  had  been 
done  and  that  either  neglected  or  forgotten, 
and  whether  a  little  more  persistence,  here  or 
there,  would  not  have  given  us  the  victory. 

These  questions  were  often  followed  by  criti- 
cism of  various  kinds,  some  of  it  plainly  sug- 
gested by  our  enemies,  some  of  it  shrewd,  and 
some  the  honest  opinion  of  men  and  women 
happily  ignorant  of  modern  war.  I  answered 
questions  and  criticism  as  best  I  could,  but  in 
the  next  town  they  were  repeated  to  me,  and 
in  the  town  beyond  reiterated,  until  I  felt  the 
need  of  a  leaflet  printed  for  distribution,  giving 

my  views  of  the  matter. 

3 


4  Gallipoli 

Later,  when  there  was  leisure,  I  began  to  con- 
sider the  Dardanelles  Campaign,  not  as  a  trag- 
edy, nor  as  a  mistake,  but  as  a  great  human  ef- 
fort, which  came,  more  than  once,  very  near  to 
triumph,  achieved  the  impossible  many  times, 
and  failed,  in  the  end,  as  many  great  deeds  of 
arms  have  failed,  from  something  which  had 
nothing  to  do  with  arms  nor  with  the  men  who 
bore  them.  That  the  effort  failed  is  not  against 
it;  much  that  is  most  splendid  in  military  his- 
tory failed,  many  great  things  and  noble  men 
have  failed.  To  myself,  this  failure  is  the  sec- 
ond grand  event  of  the  war;  the  first  was  Bel- 
gium's answer  to  the  German  ultimatum. 

The  Peninsula  of  Gallipoli,  or  Thracian 
Chersonese,  from  its  beginning  in  the  Gulf  of 
Xeros  to  its  extremity  at  Cape  Helles,  is  a 
tongue  of  hilly  land  about  fifty-three  miles  long, 
between  the  iEgean  Sea  and  the  Straits  of  the 
Dardanelles.  At  its  northeastern,  Gulf  of 
Xeros  or  European  end  it  is  four  or  five  miles 
broad,  then  a  little  to  the  south  of  the  town  of 
Bulair,  it  narrows  to  three  miles,  in  a  contrac- 
tion or   neck  which  was   fortified  during  the 


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1 1 1 1 1 


SCALE   OF  MILES 
1 1 L_ 


8  10 


&. 


The  Squares  show  the  areas  of  the 
larger  scale  maps  m  the  volume. 


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Map  No.  i 


Gallipoli  5 

Crimean  War  by  French  and  English  soldiers. 
This  fortification  is  known  as  the  Lines  of  Bu- 
lair.  Beyond  these  lines,  to  the  southwest,  the 
peninsula  broadens  in  a  westward  direction,  and 
attains  its  maximum  breadth,  of  about  twelve 
miles,  some  twenty-four  miles  from  Bulair,  be- 
tween the  two  points  of  Cape  Suvla,  on  the  sea, 
and  Cape  Uzun,  within  the  Straits.  Beyond 
this  broad  part  is  a  second  contraction  or  neck, 
less  than  five  miles  across,  and  beyond  this, 
pointing  roughly  west-southwesterly,  is  the  final 
tongue  or  finger  of  the  Peninsula,  an  isosceles 
triangle  of  land  with  a  base  of  some  seven  miles, 
and  two  sides  of  thirteen  miles  each,  converging 
in  the  blunt  tip  (perhaps  a  mile  and  a  half 
across)  between  Cape  Helles  and  Cape  Tekke. 
There  is  no  railway  within  the  peninsula,  but  bad 
roads,  possible  for  wheeled  traffic,  wind  in  the 
valleys,  skirting  the  hills  and  linking  up  the  prin- 
cipal villages.  Most  of  the  travelling  and  com- 
merce of  the  peninsula  is  done  by  boat,  along 
the  Straits,  between  the  little  port  of  Maidos, 
near  the  Narrows,  and  the  town  of  Gallipoli 
(the  chief  town)    near  the  Sea  of  Marmora. 


6  Gallipoli 

From  Gallipoli  there  is  a  fair  road  to  Bulair 
and  beyond.  Some  twenty  other  small  towns 
or  hamlets  are  scattered  here  and  there  in  the 
well-watered  valleys  in  the  central  broad  por- 
tion of  the  Peninsula.  The  inhabitants  are 
mostly  small  cultivators  with  olive  and  currant 
orchards,  a  few  vineyards  and  patches  of  beans 
and  grains;  but  not  a  hundredth  part  of  the 
land  is  under  cultivation. 

The  sea  shore,  like  the  Straits  shore,  is 
mainly  steep-to,  with  abrupt  sandy  cliffs  rising 
from  the  sea  to  a  height  of  from  one  hundred 
to  three  hundred  feet.  At  irregular  and  rare 
intervals  these  cliffs  are  broken  by  the  ravines 
or  gullies  down  which  the  autumnal  and  winter 
rains  escape;  at  the  sea  mouth  of  these  gullies 
are  sometimes  narrow  strips  of  stony  or  sandy 
beach. 

Viewed  from  the  sea,  the  Peninsula  is  singu- 
larly beautiful.  It  rises  and  falls  in  gentle  and 
stately  hills  between  four  hundred  and  eleven 
hundred  feet  high,  the  highest  being  at  about 
the  centre.  In  its  colour  (after  the  brief 
spring)  in  its  gentle  beauty,  and  the  grace  and 


Gallipoli  7 

austerity  of  its  line,  it  resembles  those  parts  of 
Cornwall  to  the  north  of  Padstow  from  which 
one  can  see  Brown  Willie.  Some  Irish  hills 
recall  it.  I  know  no  American  landscape  like 
it. 

In  the  brief  spring  the  open  ground  is  cov- 
ered with  flowers,  but  there  is  not  much  open 
ground;  in  the  Cape  Helles  district  it  is  mainly 
poor  land  growing  heather  and  thyme;  further 
north  there  is  abundant  scrub,  low  shrubs  and 
brushwood,  from  two  to  four  feet  high,  fre- 
quently very  thick.  The  trees  are  mostly 
stunted  firs,  and  very  numerous  in  the  south, 
where  the  fighting  was,  but  more  frequently 
north  of  Suvla.  In  one  or  two  of  the  villages 
there  are  fruit  trees;  on  some  of  the  hills  there 
are  small  clumps  of  pine.  Viewed  from  the 
sea  the  Peninsula  looks  waterless  and  sun-smit- 
ten; the  few  water-courses  are  deep  ravines 
showing  no  water.  Outwardly,  from  a  dis- 
tance, it  is  a  stately  land  of  beautiful  graceful 
hills  rolling  in  suave  yet  austere  lines  and  cov- 
ered with  a  fleece  of  brushwood.  In  reality 
the   suave   and  graceful   hills   are   exceedingly 


8  Gallipoli 

steep,  much  broken  and  roughly  indented  with 
gullies,  clefts  and  narrow  irregular  valleys. 
The  soil  is  something  between  a  sand  and  a 
marl,  loose  and  apt  to  blow  about  in  dry  weather 
when  not  bound  down  by  the  roots  of  brush- 
wood, but  sticky  when  wet. 

Those  who  look  at  the  southwestern  end  of 
the  Peninsula,  between  Cape  Suvla  and  Cape 
Helles,  will  see  three  heights  greater  than  the 
rolling  wold  or  downland  around  them.  Seven 
miles  southeast  from  Cape  Suvla  is  the  great 
and  beautiful  peaked  hill  of  Sari  Bair,  970  feet 
high,  very  steep  on  its  sea  side  and  thickly 
fleeced  with  scrub.  This  hill  commands  the 
landing  place  at  Suvla.  Seven  miles  south 
from  Sari  Bair  is  the  long  dominating  plateau 
of  Kilid  Bahr,  which  runs  inland  from  the 
Straits,  at  heights  varying  between  five  and 
seven  hundred  feet,  to  within  two  miles  of  the 
sea.  This  plateau  commands  the  Narrows  of 
the  Hellespont.  Five  miles  further  to  the 
southwest  and  less  than  six  miles  from  Cape 
Helles  is  the  bare  and  lonely  lump  of  Achi 
Baba,  590  feet  high.     This  hill  commands  the 


Gallipoli  9 

landing  place  at  Cape  Helles.  These  hills  and 
the  ground  commanded  by  them  were  the 
scenes  of  some  of  the  noblest  heroism  which 
ever  went  far  to  atone  for  the  infamy  of  war. 
Here  the  efforts  of  our  men  were  made. 

Those  who  wish  to  imagine  the  scenes  must 
think  of  twenty  miles  of  any  rough  and  steep  sea 
coast  known  to  them,  picturing  it  as  roadless, 
waterless,  much  broken  with  gullies,  covered 
with  scrub,  sandy,  loose  and  difficult  to  walk 
on,  and  without  more  than  two  miles  of  ac- 
cessible landing  throughout  its  length.  Let 
them  picture  this  familiar  twenty  miles  as  domi- 
nated at  intervals  by  three  hills  bigger  than  the 
hills  about  them,  the  north  hill  a  peak,  the  cen- 
tre a  ridge  or  plateau,  and  the  south  hill  a 
lump.  Then  let  them  imagine  the  hills  en- 
trenched, the  landing  mined,  the  beaches  tan- 
gled with  barbed  wire,  ranged  by  howitzers  and 
swept  by  machine  guns,  and  themselves  three 
thousand  miles  from  home,  going  out  before 
dawn,  with  rifles,  packs,  and  water  bottles,  to 
pass  the  mines  under   shell  fire,   cut  through 


io  Gallipoli 

the  wire  under  machine  gun  fire,  clamber  up 
the  hills  under  the  fire  of  all  arms,  by  the  glare 
of  shell-bursts  in  the  withering  and  crashing 
tumult  of  modern  war,  and  then  to  dig  them- 
selves in  in  a  waterless  and  burning  hill  while 
a  more  numerous  enemy  charge  them  with  the 
bayonet.  And  let  them  imagine  themselves 
enduring  this  night  after  night,  day  after  day, 
without  rest  or  solace,  nor  respite  from  the 
peril  of  death,  seeing  their  friends  killed,  and 
their  position  imperilled,  getting  their  food, 
their  munitions,  even  their  drink,  from  the  jaws 
of  death,  and  their  breath  from  the  taint  of 
death,  and  their  brief  sleep  upon  the  dust  of 
death.  Let  them  imagine  themselves  driven 
mad  by  heat  and  toil  and  thirst  by  day,  shaken 
by  frost  at  midnight,  weakened  by  disease  and 
broken  by  pestilence,  yet  rising  on  the  word 
with  a  shout  and  going  forward  to  die  in  exul 
tation  in  a  cause  foredoomed  and  almost  hope 
less.  Only  then  will  they  begin,  even  dimly,  to 
understand  what  our  seizing  and  holding  of 
the  landings  meant. 

All  down  the  southeastern  coast  of  this  Pen- 


Gallipoli  1 1 

insula  or  outlier  from  Europe  is  a  channel  of 
sea,  known,  anciently,  as  the  Hellespont,  but  in 
modern  times  more  generally  as  the  Darda- 
nelles, from  old  fortifications  of  that  name  near 
the  southwestern  end  of  the  Strait.  This  chan- 
nel, two  or  three  miles  across  at  its  southwest- 
ern end,  broadens  rapidly  to  four  or  five,  then 
narrows  to  two,  then,  for  a  short  reach,  to  one 
mile  or  less,  after  which  (with  one  more  con- 
traction) it  maintains  a  steady  breadth  of  two 
or  three  miles  till  it  opens  into  the  great  salt 
lake  of  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  and  thence  by 
another  narrow  reach  into  the  Black  Sea,  or 
Euxine. 

It  is  a  deep  water  channel,  with  from  25  to 
50  fathoms  of  water  in  it  throughout  its  length. 
The  Gallipoli,  or  European,  shore  is  steep-to, 
with  a  couple  of  fathoms  of  water  close  inshore, 
save  in  one  or  two  beaches,  where  it  shoals. 
On  the  Asian  shore,  where  the  ground  is  lower 
and  the  coast  more  shelving,  the  water  is  shal- 
lower. A  swift  current  of  from  two  to  three 
knots  an  hour  runs  always  down  the  channel 
from  the  Sea  of  Marmora ;   and  this  with   a 


1 2  Gallipoli 

southwesterly  gale  against  it  makes  a  nasty 
sea. 

This  water  of  the  Hellespont  is  the  most  im- 
portant channel  of  water  in  the  world.  It  is 
the  one  entrance  and  exit  to  the  Black  Sea,  the 
mouths  of  the  Danube,  Dniester,  Dnieper  and 
Don  and  the  great  ports  of  Constantinople, 
Odessa  and  Sebastopol.  He  who  controls  the 
channel  controls  those  ports,  with  their  wealth 
and  their  power  to  affect  great  conflicts.  The 
most  famous  war  of  all  times  was  fought  not  for 
any  human  Helen  but  to  control  that  channel. 
Our  Dardanelles  campaign  was  undertaken  to 
win  through  it  a  free  passage  for  the  ships  of 
the  Allied  Powers. 

While  the  war  was  still  young  it  became  nec- 
essary to  attempt  this  passage  for  five  reasons : 
i.  To  break  the  link  by  which  Turkey  keeps 
her  hold  as  a  European  Power.  2.  To  di- 
vert a  large  part  of  the  Turkish  army  from  op- 
erations against  our  Russian  Allies  in  the  Cau- 
casus and  elsewhere.  3.  To  pass  into  Russia, 
at  a  time  when  her  northern  ports  were  closed 
by  ice,  the  rifles  and  munitions  of  war  of  which 


Gallipoli  13 

her  armies  were  in  need.  4.  To  bring  out  of 
Southern  Russia  the  great  stores  of  wheat  lying 
there  waiting  shipment.  5.  If  possible,  to  pre- 
vent, by  a  successful  deed  of  arms  in  the  Near 
East,  any  new  alliance  against  us  among  the 
Balkan  peoples. 

In  its  simplest  form  the  problem  was  to 
force  a  passage  through  the  defended  chan- 
nel of  the  Dardanelles  into  the  Sea  of  Mar- 
mora, to  attack  the  capital  of  Turkey  in  Eu- 
rope, to  win  through  the  Bosphorus  into  the 
Black  Sea,  securing  each  step  in  the  advance 
against  reconquest  by  the  Turks,  so  that  ships 
might  pass  from  the  iEgean  to  the  Russian 
ports  in  the  Black  Sea,  bringing  to  the  Russians 
arms  for  their  unequipped  troops  and  taking 
from  them  the  corn  of  the  harvests  of  South- 
ern Russia.  The  main  problem  was  to  force 
a  passage  through  the  defended  channel  of  the 
Hellespont. 

This  passage  had  been  forced  in  the  past  by 
a  British  naval  squadron.  In  February,  1807, 
Sir  John  Duckworth  sailed  through  with  seven 
ships  of  the  line  and  some  smaller  vessels,  si- 


14  Gallipoli 

lenced  the  forts  at  Sestos  and  Abydos  and  de- 
stroyed some  Turkish  ships;  and  then,  fearing 
that  the  Turks,  helped  by  French  engineers, 
would  so  improve  the  fortifications  that  he 
would  never  be  able  to  get  back,  he  returned. 
On  his  return,  one  of  his  ships,  the  Endymion 
frigate,  40  guns,  received  in  her  hull  two  stone 
shot  each  26  inches  in  diameter. 

The  permanent  fortifications  guarding  the 
Channel  were  added  to  and  improved  during 
the  nineteenth  century.  At  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  with  Italy,  four  years  ago,  they  were 
equipped  (perhaps  by  German  officers)  with 
modern  weapons.  An  attempt  made  by  Ital- 
ian torpedo  boats  to  rush  the  Straits  by  night 
was  discovered  by  searchlights  and  checked  by 
a  heavy  fire  from  quick-firing  and  other  guns. 
All  the  torpedo  boats  engaged  in  the  operations 
were  hit  and  compelled  to  return. 

When  Turkey  entered  the  war  against  the 
Allied  Powers,  her  officers  had  every  reason 
to  expect  that  the  British  or  French  fleets 
would  attempt  to  force  the  Channel.  The  mili- 
tary prize,  Constantinople  and  the  control  of  the 


GalUpoli  15 

Black  Sea  (whether  for  peace  or  for  offence), 
was  too  great  a  temptation  to  be  resisted. 
Helped  by  their  German  allies  they  prepared 
for  this  attack  with  skill,  knowledge  and  imagi- 
nation. The  Turks  had  no  effective  battle 
fleet,  as  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  they 
sought  their  enemies  upon  their  own  coasts; 
and  had  they  had  one  they  could  not  have 
passed  the  British  fleet  blockading  the  Darda- 
nelles; but  they  prepared  the  channel  and  its 
shores  so  that  no  enemy  ship  might  pass  to  seek 
them. 

More  than  the  two  great  wars,  in  South  Af- 
rica and  Manchuria,  the  present  war  has  shown : 

(a)  that  in  modern  war,  defence  is  easier 
and  less  costly  in  men  and  munitions, 
however  much  less  decisive,  than  at- 
tack; 

(b)  that  the  ancient  type  of  permanent 
fortress,  built  of  steel,  concrete  and 
heavy  masonry  is  much  less  easy  to 
defend  against  the  fire  of  heavy  mod- 
ern howitzers  and  high  explosives 
than  temporary  field  works,  dug  into 


1 6  Gallipoli 

the  earth  and  protected  by  earth  and 
sandbags; 

(c)  that  the  fire  of  modern  long  range 
guns  is  wasteful  and  ineffective  un- 
less the  object  fired  at  can  be  accu- 
rately ranged,  and  the  fire  controlled 
by  officers  who  can  watch  the  burst- 
ing of  the  shells  on  or  near  the 
target ; 

(d)  that  in  restricted  waters  the  fixed  or 
floating  mine,  filled  with  high  explo- 
sive, is  a  sure  defence  against  enemy 
ships. 

Beginning  with  proposition  (a),  the  Turks 
argued  that  (unlike  most  defences)  a  defence 
of  the  passage  of  the  Dardanelles  against  naval 
attack  might  well  be  decisive  (i.  e.,  that  it 
might  well  cause  the  attack  to  be  abandoned  or 
even  destroy  the  attacking  ships)  since  ships 
engaged  in  the  attack  would  be  under  every  dis- 
advantage, since: 

(b)  Their  guns,  however  heavy,  would  not 
be  overwhelmingly  successful  against  temporary 
field  works  and  gun  emplacements. 


Gallipoli  17 

(c)  Their  officers,  unable  in  the  first  place 
to  locate  the  guns  hidden  on  the  shore,  would  be 
unable  to  observe  the  effect  of  their  fire,  and 
therefore  unable  to  direct  it,  and  this  disad- 
vantage would  become  greater  as  the  ships  ad- 
vanced within  the  channel  and  became  shut  in 
by  the  banks. 

(d)  They  would  be  unable  to  enter  the 
channel  until  the  waters  had  been  dragged  for 
mines  by  mine  sweepers.  The  batteries  of 
field  guns  hidden  on  the  coast  would  perhaps 
be  sufficient  to  stop  the  progress  of  the  mine 
sweepers.  If  not,  floating  mines,  alongshore 
torpedo  tubes,  and  the  accurately  ranged 
and  directed  fire  of  heavy  howitzers  would 
perhaps  sink  the  ships  of  war  as  they  ad- 
vanced. 

(e)  A  ship,  if  damaged,  would  be  five  hun- 
dred miles  from  any  friendly  dock  and  seven 
hundred  miles  from  any  friendly  arsenal.  Re- 
plenishments of  ammunition,  fuel,  food  and 
water  would  have  to  be  brought  to  the  attack- 
ing fleet  across  these  distances  of  sea,  past 
many  islands  and  through  one  or  two  channels 


1 8  Galli  poll 

well  suited  to  be  the  lurking  grounds  for  enemy 
submarines. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  the  possibility 
that  the  heavy  naval  guns  would  make  the  field 
works  untenable,  that  observers  in  aeroplanes 
and  seaplanes  would  locate,  range  and  observe 
the  fire  upon  the  hidden  batteries,  that  thus  the 
mine  sweepers  would  be  able  to  clear  a  passage 
up  the  Straits  without  undue  interruption,  and 
complete  the  task  demanded  of  them  without 
military  assistance. 

Before  operations  could  be  begun  by  the  Al- 
lied fleets  it  was  necessary  to  secure  some  har- 
bour, as  close  as  possible  to  the  Straits,  to  serve 
as  what  is  called  an  advanced  or  subsidiary  base, 
where  large  stores  of  necessaries,  such  as  fuel 
and  munitions,  could  be  accumulated  for  future 
use  by  the  ships  engaged. 

The  port  of  Mudros,  in  Lemnos,  was  se- 
lected as  this  subsidiary  base.  This  great  nat- 
ural harbour,  measuring  some  two  by  three 
miles  across,  provides  good  holding  ground  in 
from  five  to  seven  fathoms  of  water  for  half 
the  ships  in  the  world.     Two  islands  in  the  fair- 


Gallipoli  19 

way  divide  the  entrance  into  three  passages, 
and  make  it  more  easy  for  the  naval  officers  to 
defend  the  approaches.  It  is  a  safe  harbour 
for  ocean-going  ships  in  all  weathers,  but  with 
northerly  or  southerly  gales,  such  as  spring  up 
very  rapidly  there  in  the  changeable  seasons  of 
the  year  and  blow  with  great  violence  for  some 
hours  at  a  time,  the  port  is  much  wind-swept 
and  the  sea  makes  it  dangerous  for  boats  to 
lie  alongside  ships.  Mudros  itself,  the  town 
from  which  the  port  is  named,  is  a  small  col- 
lection of  wretched  houses  inhabited  by  Levan- 
tines, who  live  by  fishery,  petty  commerce,  and 
a  few  olive  gardens  and  vineyards.  It  has  a 
cathedral  or  largish  church,  and  a  small  wooden 
pier,  without  appliances,  for  the  use  of  the  na- 
tive boatmen.  The  town  lies  to  the  east  of 
the  harbour,  on  some  rising  ground  or  sand 
which  stands  up  a  little  higher  than  the  sur- 
rounding country.  Behind  it,  rather  more  than 
a  mile  away,  are  barren  hills  of  some  800  or 
900  feet.  The  port  is  ringed  in  with  these 
hills;  it  looks  like  a  great  extinct  crater  flooded 
by  the  sea.     Over  the  hills  in  fair  weather  the 


20  GalUpoli 

peaks  of  Samothrace  can  be  seen.  When  the 
spring  flowers  have  withered  the  island  is  of 
the  colour  of  a  lion's  skin.  Its  only  beauty 
then  is  that  of  changing  light. 

Mudros  in  itself  offered  nothing  to  the  Allied 
fleets  but  a  safe  anchorage.  It  could  not  even 
supply  the  ships  with  fresh  water,  let  alone 
meat,  bread  and  vegetables.  The  island  pro- 
duces little  for  its  few  inhabitants;  its  wealth  of 
a  few  goats,  fish,  olives  and  currants  could  be 
bought  up  in  a  week  by  the  crew  of  one  battle- 
ship. Everything  necessary  for  the  operations 
had  therefore  to  be  brought  by  sea  and  stored 
in  Mudros  till  wanted.  When  this  is  grasped, 
the  difficulties  of  the  undertaking  will  be  un- 
derstood. There  was  no  dock,  wharf  nor 
crane  in  Mudros,  nor  any  place  in  the  harbour 
where  a  dock  or  wharf  could  be  built  without 
an  immense  labour  of  dredging.  Ships  could 
not  be  repaired  nor  dry-docked  there,  nor  could 
they  discharge  and  receive  heavy  stores  save 
by  their  own  winches  and  derricks.  Through- 
out the  operations,  ships  had  to  serve  as 
wharves,   and   ships'   derricks   as   cranes,    and 


Gallipoli  21 

goods  were  shipped,  re-shipped  and  trans- 
shipped by  that  incessant  manual  labour  which  is 
the  larger  half  of  war. 

On  the  1 8th  February  and  following  days, 
the  Allied  Fleets  attacked  the  forts  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  Straits  and  soon  silenced  them. 
These  were  old-fashioned  stone  structures  of 
great  strength,  they  were  knocked  about  and 
made  untenable  by  the  fire  from  the  ships,  but 
not  destroyed.  After  this  first  easy  success 
came  delay,  for  the  real  obstacles  lay  within  the 
Straits,  between  Cape  Helles  and  the  Narrows. 
Here,  at  intervals,  very  skilfully  laid,  com- 
manded by  many  guns,  ranged  to  the  inch,  were 
eight  big  mine  fields,  stretching  almost  across 
the  navigable  channel  in  different  directions. 
No  ships  could  pass  this  part  of  the  Straits  until 
the  mines  had  been  groped  for  and  removed. 
In  thick  and  violent  weather,  under  heavy  fire, 
and  troubled  by  the  strong  current,  the  mine- 
sweepers began  to  remove  them,  helped  by  the 
guns  of  the  fleet.  But  the  fleet's  fire  could  not 
destroy  the  mobile  field  guns  and  howitzers 
hidden  in  the  gullies  and  nullahs  (invisible  from 


22  Gallipoli 

the  ships)  on  the  Asian  shore  and  to  the  east  of 
Achi  Baba.  The  Boers,  and  later,  the  Japan- 
ese, had  shown  how  difficult  it  is  to  locate  well- 
concealed  guns.  Even  when  sea-  and  aero- 
planes had  seen  and  signalled  the  whereabouts 
of  the  hidden  guns,  the  ships  could  only  fire 
at  the  flashes  and  at  most  hit  some  of  the  gun- 
ners; if  their  fire  became  too  accurate  the  gun- 
ners would  retire  to  their  shelters,  or  withdraw 
their  guns  to  new  hidden  emplacements.  These 
hidden  guns,  firing  continually  upon  the  mine- 
sweepers, made  the  clearing  of  the  mine  fields 
towards  the  Narrows  a  slow  and  bloody  task. 

On  the  1 8th  March,  the  ships  developed  a 
fierce  fire  upon  the  shore  defences,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  engagement  the  Turks  floated 
some  large  mines  upon  the  attacking  ships  and 
by  these  means  sank  three  battleships,  one 
French,  two  English,  the  French  ship  with  all 
her  crew. 

Heavy  and  unsettled  weather  which  made 
mine-sweeping  impossible  broke  off  serious  op- 
erations for  some  days.  During  these  days  it 
was    decided,    though    with    grave    misgivings 


Gallipoli  23 

among  the  counsellors,  that  an  army  should  be 
landed  on  the  Peninsula  to  second  the  next 
naval  attack. 

It  was  now  a  month  since  the  operations  had 
begun,  and  the  original  decision,  to  leave  the 
issue  solely  to  the  ships,  had  delayed  the  con- 
centration of  the  troops  needed  for  the  task. 
The  army,  under  the  supreme  command  of 
General  Sir  Ian  Hamilton,  was  assembling,  but 
not  yet  concentrated  nor  on  the  scene.  Some 
of  it  was  in  Egypt,  some  in  transports  at  sea. 
When  it  was  decided  to  use  the  army  in  the 
venture,  much  necessary  work  had  still  to  be 
done.  The  Turks  had  now  been  given  so  much 
time  to  defend  the  landing  places  that  to  get 
our  troops  ashore  at  all  called  for  the  most 
elaborate  preparation  and  the  working  out  of 
careful  schemes  with  the  naval  officers.  The 
Germans  boasted  that  our  troops  would  never 
be  able  to  land;  possibly  at  first  thought,  many 
soldiers  would  have  agreed  with  them,  but  Eng- 
lish soldiers  and  sailors  are  not  Germans;  they 
are,  as  Carlyle  says,  "  far  other";  our  Ad- 
mirals and  General  felt  that  with  courage  and  a 


24  Gallipoli 

brave  face  our  troops  could  land.  It  was  true 
that  the  well-armed  Turks  were  amply  ready 
and  could  easily  concentrate  against  any  army 
which  we  could  land  and  supply,  a  far  larger 
force,  more  easily  supplied  and  supported. 
But  in  the  narrow  Peninsula  they  could  not 
move  their  larger  forces  so  as  to  out-flank  us. 
Our  flanks  could  be  protected  always  by  the 
fleet.  And  besides,  in  war,  fortune  plays  a 
large  part,  and  skill,  courage  and  resolution, 
and  that  fine  blending  of  all  three  in  the  uncom- 
mon sense  called  genius,  have  often  triumphed 
even  where  common  sense  has  failed.  It  was 
necessary  that  we  should  divert  large  armies 
of  Turks  from  our  Russian  Allies  in  the  Cau- 
casus; it  was  desirable  to  strike  the  imaginations 
of  the  Balkan  States  by  some  daring  feat  of 
arms  close  to  them;  it  was  vital  to  our  enter- 
prise in  Mesopotamia  and  to  the  safety  of 
Egypt  that  we  should  alarm  the  Turks  for  their 
capital  and  make  them  withdraw  their  armies 
from  their  frontiers.  This  operation,  striking 
at  the  heart  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  was  the 
readiest  way  to  do  all  these  things. 


Gallipoli  25 

The  army  designated  for  this  honourable 
and  dangerous  task  consisted  of  the  follow- 
ing: 

A  division  of  French  soldiers,  the  Corps  Ex- 
peditionnaire  de  l'Orient,  under  M.  le  General 
d'Amade.  This  division  was  made  up  of 
French  Territorial  soldiers  and  Senegalese. 

The  29th  Division  of  British  regular 
troops. 

The  Royal  Naval  Division. 

The  Australian  and  New  Zealand  Army 
Corps. 

The  French  Division  and  the  29th  Division 
of  British  Regular  soldiers  were  men  who  had 
been  fully  trained  in  time  of  peace,  but  the 
Australian  and  New  Zealand  Army  Corps  and 
the  Royal  Naval  Division,  who  together  made 
up  more  than  half  the  army,  were  almost  all 
men  who  had  enlisted  since  the  declaration  of 
war,  and  had  had  not  more  than  six  months'  ac- 
tive training.  They  were,  however,  the  finest 
body  of  young  men  ever  brought  together  in 
modern  times.  For  physical  beauty  and  nobil- 
ity of  bearing  they  surpassed  any  men  I  have 


26  Gallipoli 

ever  seen;  they  walked  and  looked  like  the 
kings  in  old  poems,  and  reminded  me  of  the  line 
in  Shakespeare: 

"  Baited  like  eagles  having  lately  bathed." 

As  their  officers  put  it,  "  they  were  in  the  pink 
of  condition  and  didn't  care  a  damn  for  any- 
body." Most  of  these  new  and  irregular  for- 
mations were  going  into  action  for  the  first 
time,  to  receive  their  baptism  of  fire  in  "  a  feat 
of  arms  only  possible  to  the  flower  of  a  very 
fine  army." 

Having  decided  to  use  the  army,  the  ques- 
tion how  to  use  it  was  left  to  the  Commanding 
General,  whose  task  was  to  help  the  British 
fleet  through  the  Narrows.  Those  who  have 
criticised  the  operations  to  me,  even  those  who 
know,  or  pretended  to  know  the  country  and 
military  matters  (but  who  were,  for  the  most 
part,  the  gulls  or  agents  of  German  propa- 
ganda) raised,  nearly  always,  one  or  both  of  the 
following  alternatives  to  the  attack  used  by  Sir 
Ian  Hamilton.     They  have  asked: 


Gallipoli  27 

( 1 )  Why  did  he  not  attack  at  or  to  the  north 
of  Bulair  in  the  Gulf  of  Xeros,  or 

(2)  Why  did  he  not  attack  along  the  Asiatic 
coast,  instead  of  where  he  did,  at  Cape 
Helles  and  Anzac? 

Those  who  have  asked  these  questions  have 
always  insisted  to  me  that  had  he  chosen  either 
alternative  his  efforts  must  have  been  successful. 
It  may  be  well  to  set  down  here  the  final  and 
sufficient  reasons  against  either  folly. 

Firstly,  then,  the  reasons  against  landing  the 
army  at  or  to  the  north  of  Bulair  in  the  Gulf 
of  Xeros. 

1.  The  task  demanded  of  the  army  was,  to 
second  the  naval  attack  in  the  Straits,  i.  e.,  by 
seizing  and  occupying,  if  possible,  the  high 
ground  in  the  Peninsula  from  which  the  Turkish 
guns  molested  the  mine-sweepers.  As  this  high 
ground  commanded  the  Asiatic  shore,  its  occu- 
pation by  the  British  troops  would  have  made 
possible  the  passage  of  the  Straits.  This  and 
this  alone  was  the  task  demanded  of  the  army, 
no  adventure  upon  Constantinople  was  de- 
signed or  possible  with  the  numbers  of  men 


28  Gallipoli 

available.  How  the  army  could  have  sec- 
onded the  naval  attack  by  landing  three  or  four 
days'  march  from  the  Narrows  within  easy 
reach  of  the  large  Turkish  armies  in  European 
Turkey  is  not  clear.       ♦ 

Nevertheless,  our  task  was  to  land  the  army 
and  all  landing  places  had  to  be  examined. 
Pass  now  to  : 

(a)  Bulair  was  carefully  reconnoitred  and 
found  to  be  a  natural  stronghold,  so  fortified 
with  earthworks  that  there  was  no  chance  of 
taking  it.  Ten  thousand  Turks  had  been  dig- 
ging there  for  a  month,  and  had  made  it  im- 
pregnable. There  are  only  two  landing  places 
near  Bulair,  one  (a  very  bad  one)  in  a  swamp 
or  salt-marsh  to  the  east,  the  other  in  a  kind  of 
death-trap  ravine  to  the  west,  both  dominated 
by  high  ground  in  front,  and  one  (the  east- 
ward) commanded  also  from  the  rear.  Had 
the  army,  or  any  large  part  of  it,  landed  at 
either  beach,  it  would  have  been  decimated  in 
the  act  and  then  held  up  by  the  fortress. 

(b)  Had  the  army  landed  to  the  north  of 
Bulair  on  the   coast  of  European  Turkey  it 


Gallipoli  29 

would  have  been  in  grave  danger  of  destruc- 
tion. Large  Turkish  armies  could  have 
marched  upon  its  left  and  front  from  Adrian- 
ople  and  Rodosto,  while,  as  it  advanced,  the 
large  army  in  Gallipoli,  reinforced  from  Asia 
across  the  Straits,  could  have  marched  from 
Bulair  and  fallen  upon  its  right  flank  and  rear, 
(c)  But  even  had  it  beaten  these  armies, 
some  four  times  its  own  strength,  it  would  none 
the  less  have  perished,  through  failure  of  sup- 
plies, since  no  European  army  could  hope  to 
live  upon  a  Turkish  province  in  the  spring,  and 
European  supplies  could  have  been  brought  to 
it  only  with  the  utmost  difficulty  and  danger. 
There  is  no  port  upon  that  part  of  the  Turkish 
coast;  no  shelter  from  the  violent  southerly 
gales,  and  no  depth  of  water  near  the  shore. 
In  consequence,  no  transports  of  any  size  could 
approach  within  some  miles  of  the  coast  to  land 
either  troops  or  stores.  Even  had  there  been 
depth  of  water  for  them,  transports  could  not 
have  discharged  upon  the  coast  because  of  the 
danger  from  submarines.  They  would  have 
been  compelled  to  discharge  in  the  safe  har- 


30  Gallipoli 

bour  of  the  subsidiary  base  at  Mudros  in  Lem- 
nos,  and  (as  happened  with  the  fighting  where 
it  was)  their  freight,  whether  men  or  stores, 
re-shipped  into  small  ships  of  too  light  draught 
to  be  in  danger  from  submarines,  and  by  them 
conveyed  to  the  landing  places.  But  this  sys- 
tem, which  never  quite  failed  at  Anzac  and 
Cape  Helles,  would  have  failed  on  the  Xeros 
coast.  Anzac  is  some  forty  miles  from  Mud- 
ros, the  Xeros  coast  is  eighty,  or  twice  the  dis- 
tance. Had  the  army  landed  at  Xeros,  it 
would  have  been  upon  an  unproductive  enemy 
territory  in  an  unsettled  season  of  the  year, 
from  eighty  to  twenty  hours'  steam  from  their 
own  safe  subsidiary  base.  A  stormy  week 
might  have  cut  them  off  at  any  time  from  all 
possibility  of  obtaining  a  man,  a  biscuit,  a  cart- 
ridge or  even  a  drink  of  water,  and  this  upon 
ground  where  they  could  with  little  trouble  be 
outnumbered  by  armies  four  times  their 
strength  with  sound  communications. 

Secondly,  for  the  reasons  against  attacking 
along  the  Asiatic  coast: 

(a)   The  coast  is  commanded  from  the  Gal- 


Gallipoli  .    31 

lipoli  coast  and  therefore  less  important  to 
those  trying  to  second  a  naval  attack  upon  the 
Narrows. 

(b)  An  army  advancing  from  Kum  Kale 
along  the  Asiatic  shore  would  be  forced  to 
draw  its  supplies  from  overseas.  As  it  ad- 
vanced, its  communications  could  be  cut  with 
great  ease  at  any  point  by  the  hordes  of  armed 
Turks  in  Asia  Minor. 

(c)  The  Turkish  armies  in  Asia  Minor 
would  have  attacked  it  in  the  right  and  rear, 
those  from  Bulair  and  Rodosto  would  have 
ferried  over  and  attacked  it  in  front,  the  guns 
in  Gallipoli  would  have  shelled  its  left,  and  the 
task  made  impracticable. 

Some  of  those  who  raised  these  alternatives 
raised  a  third;  when  the  first  two  had  been  dis- 
posed of,  they  asked,  "  Even  if  the  army 
could  not  have  landed  at  Bulair  or  on  the  Asian 
coast,  why  did  it  land  where  it  did  land,  on 
those  suicidal  beaches?'  The  answer  to  this 
criticism  is  as  follows:  It  landed  on  those 
beaches  because  there  were  no  others  on  the 


32  Gallipoli 

Peninsula,  because  the  only  landing  places  at 
which  troops  could  be  got  ashore  with  any  pros- 
pect of  success  however  slight  were  just  those 
three  or  four  small  beaches  near  Cape  Helles,  at 
the  southwest  end  of  the  Peninsula,  and  the 
one  rather  longer  beach  to  the  north  of  Gaba 
or  Kaba  Tepe.  All  these  beaches  were  seen  to 
be  strongly  defended,  with  barbed  wire  en- 
tanglements on  the  shore  and  under  the  water, 
with  sea  and  land  mines,  with  strongly  en- 
trenched riflemen,  many  machine  guns,  and  an 
ample  artillery.  In  addition,  the  beaches  close 
to  Cape  Helles  were  within  range  of  big  guns 
mounted  near  Troy  on  the  Asian  shore,  and  the 
beach  near  Gaba  Tepe  was  ranged  by  the  guns 
in  the  olive  groves  to  the  south  and  on  the 
hills  to  the  north  of  it.  A  strong  Turkish  army 
held  the  Peninsula,  and  very  powerful  reserves 
were  at  Bulair,  all  well  supplied  (chiefly  by 
boat  from  the  Asian  shore)  with  food  and 
munitions.  German  officers  had  organised  the 
defence  of  the  Peninsula  with  great  professional 
skill.  They  had  made  it  a  fortress  of  great 
strength,  differing  from  all  other  fortresses  in 


Galli  poll  33 

this,  that  besides  being  almost  impregnable  it 
was  almost  unapproachable.  But  our  army  had 
its  task  to  do,  there  was  no  other  means  of  do- 
ing it,  and  our  men  had  to  do  what  they  could. 
Any  one  trying  to  land,  to  besiege  that  fortress, 
had  to  do  so  by  boat  or  lighter  under  every  gun 
in  the  Turkish  army.  The  Turks  and  the  Ger- 
mans knew,  better  than  we,  what  few  and  nar- 
row landing  places  were  possible  to  our  men, 
they  had  more  than  two  months  of  time  in  which 
to  make  those  landing  places  fatal  to  any  enemy 
within  a  mile  of  them,  yet  our  men  came  from 
three  thousand  miles  away,  passed  that  mile  of 
massacre,  landed  and  held  on  with  all  their 
guns,  stores,  animals  and  appliances,  in  spite  of 
the  Turk  and  his  ally,  who  outnumbered  them 
at  every  point. 

No  army  in  history  has  made  a  more  heroic 
attack;  no  army  in  history  has  been  set  such 
a  task.  No  other  body  of  men  in  any  modern 
war  has  been  called  upon  to  land  over  mined 
and  wired  waters  under  the  cross  fire  of  ma- 
chine guns.  The  Japanese  at  Chinampo  and 
Chemulpho  were  not  opposed,  the  Russians  at 


34  Galli  poli 

Pitezwo  were  not  prepared,  the  Spaniards  at 
Daiquiri  made  no  fight.  Our  men  achieved  a 
feat  without  parallel  in  war  and  no  other 
troops  in  the  world  (not  even  Japanese  or 
Gurkhas  or  Ghazis  in  the  hope  of  heaven) 
would  have  made  good  those  beaches  on  the 
25th  of  April. 


II 


Then  said  Roland:    "Oliver,  companion,  brother 

.  .  .  we  shall  have  a  strong  and  tough  battle,  such  as 

man  ncvci  saw  (ought.  But  I  shall  strike  with  my 
sword,  and  VOU,  Comrade,  will  strike  with  yours;  we 
have  Dome  Our  SWOrds  in  SO  many  Lands,  we  have  ended 
SO  main  battles  with  them,  that  no  evil  son£  shall  be 
sung  oi  them.*'  ...  At  these  words  the  Franks  went 
forward  gladly. 

The  Sony  of  Roland. 


Let  the  reader  now  try  to  imagine  the  na- 
ture of  the  landing.  In  order  to  puzzle  the 
Turkish  commander,  to  make  him  hesitate  and 
divide  his  forces,  it  was  necessary  to  land  or 
pretend  to  land,  in  some  force,  simultaneously 
at  various  places.  A  feint  of  landing  was  to 
be  made  near  Bulair,  the  French  Corps  Expe- 
ditionnaire  was  to  land  at  Kum  Kale,  to  attack 
and  silence  the  Asiatic  fortifications  and  batter- 
ies, the  Australian  and  New  Zealand  Army 
Corps  was  to  land  at  or  near  Gaba  Tepe,  while 
men  of  the  29th  and  Royal  Naval  Divisions 
landed  at  or  near  Cape  Helles,  some  towards 
Krithia  on  the  north,  others  nearer  Sedd-el- 
Bahr  on  the  southwest  and  south.  The  main 
attacks  were  to  be  those  near  Gaba  Tepe  and 
Cape  Helles. 

At  Cape  Helles  three  principal  landings  were 
to  be  made  at  the  following  places : 

1.  At  Beach  V,  a  small  semi-circular  sandy 

37 


38  Gallipoli 

bay,  300  yards  across,  just  west  of  the  ruins 
of  Sedd-el-Bahr  castle.  The  ground  rises 
steeply  round  the  half  circle  of  the  bay  exactly 
as  the  seats  rise  in  an  amphitheatre.  Modern 
defence  could  not  ask  for  a  more  perfect  site. 

2.  At  Beach  W  (to  the  west  of  V),  where 
a  small  sandy  bay  under  Cape  Tekke  offered 
a  landing  upon  a  strip  of  sand  about  the  size 
of  Beach  V.  The  slope  upward  from  this 
beach  is  more  gentle  than  at  V,  through  a  suc- 
cession of  sand  dunes,  above  which  the  ground 
was  strongly  entrenched.  The  cliffs  north  and 
south  are  precipitous,  and  make  the  beach  a 
kind  of  gully  or  ravine.  The  Turks  had  placed 
machine  guns  in  holes  in  the  cliff,  had  wired  and 
mined  both  beach  and  bay,  and  thrown  up 
strong  redoubts  to  flank  them.  Beach  W  was 
a  death  trap. 

3.  At  Beach  X  (north  of  W,  on  the  other 
or  northern  side  of  Cape  Tekke),  a  narrow 
strip  of  sand,  200  yards  long,  at  the  foot  of  a 
low  cliff.  This,  though  too  small  to  serve  for 
the  quick  passage  ashore  of  many  men  at  a 
time,  was  a  slightly  easier  landing  place  than 


iStan/brxk  Gzcg  i&tai  'ImdaZ. 


Map  No.  2 


Gallipoli  39 

the  other  two,  owing  to  the  lie  of  the  ground. 
Besides    these    main    landings,    two    minor 
landings  were  to  be  made  as  follows: 

4.  At  Beach  S,  a  small  beach,  within  the 
Straits,  beyond  Sedd-el-Bahr. 

5.  At  Beach  Y  (on  the  .^Egcan,  to  the  west 
of  Krithia),  a  strip  of  sand  below  a  precipitous 
cliff,  gashed  with  steep,  crumbling,  and  scrub- 
covered  gullies. 

These  two  minor  landings  were  to  protect  the 
flanks  of  the  main  landing  parties,  "  to  dissemi- 
nate the  forces  of  the  enemy  and  to  interrupt 
the  arrival  of  his  reinforcements. "  They  were 
to  take  place  at  dawn  (at  about  5  a.  m.  or  half 
an  hour  before  the  main  attacks),  without  any 
preliminary  bombardment  from  the  fleet  upon 
the  landing  places. 

Near  Gaba  Tepe  only  one  landing  was  to 
be  made,  upon  a  small  beach,  200  yards  across, 
a  mile  to  the  north  of  Gaba  Tepe  promontory. 
The  ground  beyond  this  beach  is  abrupt  sandy 
cliff,  covered  with  scrub,  flanked  by  Gaba  Tepe, 
and  commanded  by  the  land  to  shoreward. 


40  Gallipoli 

For  some  days  before  the  landing,  the  Army 
lay  at  Mudros,  in  Lemnos,  aboard  its  trans- 
ports, or  engaged  in  tactical  exercises  ashore 
and  in  the  harbour.  Much  bitter  and  ignorant 
criticism  has  been  passed  upon  this  delay,  which 
was,  unfortunately,  very  necessary.  The 
month  of  April,  19 15,  in  the  iEgean,  was  a 
month  of  unusually  unsettled  weather;  it  was 
quite  impossible  to  attempt  the  landing  with- 
out calm  water  and  the  likelihood  of  fine 
weather  for  some  days.  In  rough  weather  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  land  laden  sol- 
diers with  their  stores  through  the  surf  of  open 
beaches,  under  heavy  fire,  and  those  who  main- 
tain, that  "  other  soldiers"  (i.  e.  themselves) 
would  have  made  the  attempt,  can  have  no 
knowledge  of  what  wading  ashore  from  a  boat, 
in  bad  weather,  in  the  iEgean  or  any  other  sea, 
even  without  a  pack  and  with  no  enemy  ahead,  is 
like.  But  in  unsettled  weather  the  Gallipoli 
coast  is  not  only  difficult  but  exceedingly  danger- 
ous for  small  vessels.  The  currents  are  fierce, 
and  a  short  and  ugly  sea  gets  up  quickly  and 
makes   towing  hazardous.     Had  the   attempt 


Gallipoli  41 

been  made  in  foul  weather  a  great  many  men 
would  have  been  drowned,  some  few  would  have 
reached  the  shore,  and  then  the  ships  would 
have  been  forced  off  the  coast.  The  few  men 
left  on  the  shore  would  have  had  to  fight  there 
with  neither  supplies  nor  supports  till  the  enemy 
overwhelmed  them. 

Another  reason  for  delay  was  the  need  for 
the  most  minute  preparation.  Many  armies 
have  been  landed  from  boats  from  the  time  of 
Pharaoh's  invasion  of  Punt  until  the  present, 
but  no  men,  not  even  Caesar's  army  of  invasion 
in  Britain,  have  had  to  land  in  an  enemy's  coun- 
try with  such  a  prospect  of  difficulty  before 
them.  They  were  going  to  land  on  a  food- 
less  cliff,  five  hundred  miles  from  a  store,  in 
a  place  and  at  a  season  in  which  the  sea's  ris- 
ing might  cut  them  from  supply.  They  had  to 
take  with  them  all  things,  munitions,  guns,  en- 
trenching tools,  sandbags,  provisions,  clothing, 
medical  stores,  hospital  equipment,  mules, 
horses,  fodder,  even  water  to  drink,  for  the 
land  produced  not  even  that.  These  military 
supplies    had   to    be    arranged    in   boats    and 


42  Gallipoli 

lighters  in  such  a  way  that  they  might  be  thrust 
ashore  with  many  thousands  of  men  in  all  haste 
but  without  confusion.  All  this  world  of 
preparation,  which  made  each  unit  landed  a 
self-supporting  army,  took  time  and  labour, 
how  much  can  only  be  judged  by  those  who 
have  done  similar  work. 

On  Friday,  the  23rd  of  April,  the  weather 
cleared  so  that  the  work  could  be  begun.  In 
fine  weather  in  Mudros  a  haze  of  beauty  comes 
upon  the  hills  and  water  till  their  loveliness 
is  unearthly  it  is  so  rare.  Then  the  bay  is 
like  a  blue  jewel,  and  the  hills  lose  their  sav- 
agery, and  glow,  and  are  gentle,  and  the  sun 
comes  up  from  Troy,  and  the  peaks  of  Sa- 
mothrace  change  colour,  and  all  the  marvellous 
ships  in  the  harbour  are  transfigured.  The 
land  of  Lemnos  was  beautiful  with  flowers  at 
that  season,  in  the  brief  iEgean  spring,  and 
to  seawards  always,  in  the  bay,  were  the  ships, 
more  ships,  perhaps,  than  any  port  of  modern 
times  has  known;  they  seemed  like  half  the 
ships  of  the  world.  In  this  crowd  of  ship- 
ping,  strange  beautiful  Greek  vessels  passed, 


Galli  poll  43 

under  rigs  of  old  time,  with  sheep  and  goats 
and  fish,  for  sale,  and  the  tugs  of  the  Thames 
and  Mersey  met  again  the  ships  they  had  towed 
of  old,  bearing  a  new  freight,  of  human  cour- 
age. The  transports  (all  painted  black)  lay 
in  tiers,  well  within  the  harbour,  the  men  of 
war  nearer  Mudros  and  the  entrance.  Now  in 
all  that  city  of  ships,  so  busy  with  passing  picket- 
boats,  and  noisy  with  the  labour  of  men,  the 
getting  of  the  anchors  began.  Ship  after  ship, 
crammed  with  soldiers,  moved  slowly  out  of 
harbour,  in  the  lovely  day,  and  felt  again  the 
heave  of  the  sea.  No  such  gathering  of  fine 
ships  has  ever  been  seen  upon  this  earth,  and 
the  beauty  and  the  exaltation  of  the  youth 
upon  them  made  them  like  sacred  things  as 
they  moved  away.  All  the  thousands  of  men 
aboard  them,  gathered  on  deck  to  see,  till  each 
rail  was  thronged.  These  men  had  come  from 
all  parts  of  the  British  world,  from  Africa, 
Australia,  Canada,  India,  the  Mother  Coun- 
try, New  Zealand  and  remote  islands  in  the 
sea.  They  had  said  good-bye  to  home  that 
they  might  offer  their  lives  in  the   cause  we 


44  Gallipoli 

stand  for.  In  a  few  hours  at  most,  as  they 
well  knew,  perhaps  a  tenth  of  them  would  have 
looked  their  last  on  the  sun,  and  be  a  part  of 
foreign  earth  or  dumb  things  that  the  tides 
push.  Many  of  them  would  have  disappeared 
forever  from  the  knowledge  of  man,  blotted 
from  the  book  of  life  none  would  know  how, 
by  a  fall  or  chance  shot  in  the  darkness,  in 
the  blast  of  a  shell,  or  alone,  like  a  hurt  beast, 
in  some  scrub  or  gully,  far  from  comrades  and 
the  English  speech  and  the  English  singing. 
And  perhaps  a  third  of  them  would  be  mangled, 
blinded  or  broken,  lamed,  made  imbecile  or  dis- 
figured, with  the  colour  and  the  taste  of  life 
taken  from  them,  so  that  they  would  never 
more  move  with  comrades  nor  exult  in  the  sun. 
And  those  not  taken  thus  would  be  under  the 
ground,  sweating  in  the  trench,  carrying  sand- 
bags up  the  sap,  dodging  death  and  danger, 
without  rest  or  food  or  drink,  in  the  blazing 
sun  or  the  frost  of  the  Gallipoli  night,  till 
death  seemed  relaxation  and  a  wound  a  lux- 
ury. But  as  they  moved  out  these  things  were 
but  the  end  they  asked,  the  reward  they  had 


Gallipoli  45 

come  for,  the  unseen  cross  upon  the  breast. 
All  that  they  felt  was  a  gladness  of  exultation 
that  their  young  courage  was  to  be  used.  They 
went  like  kings  in  a  pageant  to  the  imminent 
death. 

As  they  passed  from  moorings  to  the  man- 
of-war  anchorage  on  their  way  to  the  sea, 
their  feeling  that  they  had  done  with  life  and 
were  going  out  to  something  new,  welled  up 
in  those  battalions;  they  cheered  and  cheered 
till  the  harbour  rang  with  cheering.  As  each 
ship  crammed  with  soldiers  drew  near  the  bat- 
tleships, the  men  swung  their  caps  and  cheered 
again,  and  the  sailors  answered,  and  the  noise 
of  cheering  swelled,  and  the  men  in  the  ships 
not  yet  moving  joined  in,  and  the  men  ashore, 
till  all  the  life  in  the  harbour  was  giving 
thanks  that  it  could  go  to  death  rejoicing.  All 
was  beautiful  in  that  gladness  of  men  about  to 
die,  but  the  most  moving  thing  was  the  great- 
ness of  their  generous  hearts.  As  they  passed 
the  French  ships,  the  memory  of  old  quarrels 
healed,  and  the  sense  of  what  sacred  France 
has  done  and  endured,  in  this  great  war,  and 


46  Galli  poli 

the  pride  of  having  such  men  as  the  French  for 
comrades,  rose  up  in  their  warm  souls,  and 
they  cheered  the  French  ships  more,  even,  than 
their  own. 

They  left  the  harbour  very,  very  slowly;  this 
tumult  of  cheering  lasted  a  long  time;  no  one 
who  heard  it  will  ever  forget  it,  or  think  of  it 
unshaken.  It  broke  the  hearts  of  all  there 
with  pity  and  pride :  it  went  beyond  the  guard 
of  the  English  heart.  Presently  all  were  out, 
and  the  fleet  stood  across  for  Tenedos,  and  the 
sun  went  down  with  marvellous  colour,  light- 
ing island  after  island  and  the  Asian  peaks, 
and  those  left  behind  in  Mudros  trimmed  their 
lamps  knowing  that  they  had  been  for  a  little 
brought  near  to  the  heart  of  things. 

The  next  day,  the  24th  April,  the  troops  of 
the  landing  parties  went  on  board  the  war- 
ships and  mine-sweepers  which  were  to  take 
them  ashore.  At  midnight  the  fleet  got  under 
way  from  Tenedos  and  stood  out  for  the  Pen- 
insula. Dawn  was  to  be  at  five,  the  landings 
on  the  flanks  were  to  take  place  then,  the  others 


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Gallipoli  47 

at  half-past  five,  after  the  fleet  had  bombarded 
the  beaches.  Very  few  of  the  soldiers  of  the 
landing  parties  slept  that  night;  the  excitement 
of  the  morrow  kept  them  awake,  as  happened 
to  Nelson's  sailors  before  Trafalgar.  It  was 
a  very  still  fine  night,  slightly  hazy,  with  a  sea 
so  still  that  the  ships  had  no  trouble  with  their 
long  tows  of  boats  and  launches.  As  it  began 
to  grow  light  the  men  went  down  into  the  boats, 
and  the  two  flanking  parties  started  for  the 
outer  beaches  S  and  Y.  The  guns  of  the  fleet 
now  opened  a  heavy  fire  upon  the  Turkish  posi- 
tions and  the  big  guns  on  the  Asian  shore  sent 
over  a  few  shell  in  answer;  but  the  Turks  near 
the  landing  places  reserved  their  fire.  During 
the  intense  bombardment  by  the  fleet,  when  the 
ships  were  trembling  like  animals  with  the 
blasts  of  the  explosions,  the  picket  boats  tow- 
ing the  lighters  went  ahead  and  the  tow-loads 
of  crowded  men  started  for  the  main  landings 
on  beaches  V,  W  and  X. 

It  was  now  light,  and  the  haze  on  Sedd-el- 
Bahr  was  clearing  away  so  that  those  in  charge 
of  the  boats  could  see  what  they  were  doing. 


48  Gallipoli 

Had  they  attempted  an  attack  in  the  dark  on 
those  unsurveyed  beaches  among  the  fierce  and 
dangerous  tide  rips  the  loss  of  life  would  have 
been  very  great.  As  it  was,  the  exceeding 
fierceness  of  the  currents  added  much  to  the 
difficulty  and  danger  of  the  task.  We  will  take 
the  landings  in  succession. 

The  Landing  at  V  Beach,  near  Sedd-el-Bahr. 

The  men  told  off  for  this  landing  were: 
The  Dublin  Fusiliers,  the  Munster  Fusiliers, 
half  a  battalion  of  the  Hampshire  Regiment, 
and  the  West  Riding  Field  Company. 

Three  companies  of  the  Dublin  Fusiliers 
were  to  land  from  towed  lighters,  the  rest  of 
the  party  from  a  tramp  steamer,  the  collier 
River  Clyde.  This  ship,  a  conspicuous  sea- 
mark at  Cape  Helles  throughout  the  rest  of  the 
campaign,  had  been  altered  to  carry  and  land 
troops.  Great  gangways  or  entry  ports  had 
been  cut  in  her  sides  on  the  level  of  her  be- 
tween decks,  and  platforms  had  been  built  out 
upon  her  sides  below  these,  so  that  men  might 
run  from  her  in  a  hurry.     The  plan  was  to 


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Gallipoli  49 

beach  her  as  near  the  shore  as  possible,  and 
then  drag  or  sweep  the  lighters,  which  she 
towed,  into  position  between  her  and  the  shore, 
so  as  to  make  a  kind  of  boat  bridge  from  her  to 
the  beach.  When  the  lighters  were  so  moored 
as  to  make  this  bridge,  the  entry  ports  were 
to  be  opened,  the  waiting  troops  were  to  rush 
out  on  to  the  external  platforms,  run  from 
them  on  to  the  lighters  and  so  to  the  shore. 
The  ship's  upper  deck  and  bridge  were  pro- 
tected with  boiler  plate  and  sandbags,  and  a 
casement  for  machine  guns  was  built  upon  her 
fo'c'sle,  so  that  she  might  reply  to  the  enemy's 
fire. 

Five  picket-boats,  each  towing  five  boats  or 
launches  full  of  men,  steamed  alongside  the 
River  Clyde  and  went  ahead  when  she 
grounded.  She  took  the  ground  rather  to  the 
right  of  the  little  beach,  some  400  yards  from 
the  ruins  of  Sedd-el-Bahr  castle,  before  the 
Turks  had  opened  fire,  but  almost  as  she 
grounded,  when  the  picket-boats  with  their 
tows  were  ahead  of  her,  only  twenty  or  thirty 
yards  from  the  beach,  every  rifle  and  machine 


50  Gallipoli 

gun  in  the  castle,  the  town  above  it,  and  in 
the  curved  low  strongly  trenched  hill  along  the 
bay,  began  a  murderous  fire  upon  ship  and 
boats.  There  was  no  question  of  their  miss- 
ing. They  had  their  target  on  the  front  and 
both  flanks  at  ranges  between  ioo  and  300 
yards  in  clear  daylight,  thirty  boats  bunched 
together  and  crammed  with  men  and  a  good 
big  ship.  The  first  outbreak  of  fire  made  the 
bay  as  white  as  a  rapid,  for  the  Turks  fired  not 
less  than  ten  thousand  shots  a  minute  for  the  l 
first  few  minutes  of  that  attack.  Those  not 
killed  in  the  boats  at  the  first  discharge  jumped 
overboard  to  wade  or  swim  ashore,  many  were 
killed  in  the  water,  many,  who  were  wounded, 
were  swept  away  and  drowned,  others,  trying 
to  swim  in  the  fierce  current,  were  drowned  by 
the  weight  of  their  equipment;  but  some 
reached  the  shore,  and  these  instantly  doubled 
out  to  cut  the  wire  entanglements,  and  were 
killed,  or  dashed  for  the  cover  of  a  bank  of 
sand  or  raised  beach  which  runs  along  the 
curve  of  the  bay.  Those  very  few  who  reached 
this  cover  were  out  of  immediate  danger,  but 


Gallipoli  5 1 

they  were  only  a  handful.     The  boats  were  de- 
stroyed where  they  grounded. 

Meanwhile,  the  men  of  the  River  Clyde 
tried  to  make  their  bridge  of  boats,  by  sweep- 
ing the  lighters  into  position  and  mooring 
them  between  the  ship  and  the  shore.  They 
were  killed  as  they  worked,  but  others  took 
their  places,  the  bridge  was  made,  and  some 
of  the  Munsters  dashed  along  it  from  the  ship 
and  fell  in  heaps  as  they  ran.  As  a  second 
company  followed,  the  moorings  of  the  light- 
ers broke  or  were  shot,  the  men  leaped  into 
the  water  and  were  drowned  or  killed,  or 
reached  the  beach  and  were  killed,  or  fell 
wounded  there,  and  lay  under  fire  getting 
wound  after  wound  till  they  died;  very,  very 
few  reached  the  sandbank.  More  brave  men 
jumped  aboard  the  lighters  to  remake  the 
bridge.  They  were  swept  away  or  shot  to 
pieces;  the  average  life  on  those  boats  was  some 
three  minutes  long,  but  they  remade  the  bridge, 
and  the  third  company  of  the  Munsters  doubled 
down  to  death  along  it  under  a  storm  of  shrap- 
nel which  scarcely  a  man  survived.     LThe  big 


52  Gallipoli 

guns  in  Asia  were  now  shelling  the  River 
Clyde,  and  the  hell  of  rapid  fire  never  paused. 
More  men  tried  to  land,  headed  by  Brigadier 
General  Napier,  who  was  instantly  killed,  with 
nearly  all  his  followers.  Then  for  long  hours 
the  remainder  stayed  on  board,  down  below  in 
the  grounded  steamer,  while  the  shots  beat  on 
her  plates  with  a  rattling  clang  which  never 
stopped.  Her  twelve  machine  guns  fired  back, 
killing  any  Turk  who  showed,  but  nothing  could 
be  done  to  support  the  few  survivors  of  the 
landing,  who  now  lay  under  cover  of  the  sand- 
bank on  the  other  side  of  the  beach.  It  was  al- 
most certain  death  to  try  to  leave  the  ship,  but 
all  through  the  day  men  leaped  from  her  (with 
leave  or  without  it)  to  bring  water  or  succour  to 
the  wounded  on  the  boats  or  beach.  A  hun- 
dred brave  men  gave  their  lives  thus:  every 
man  there  earned  the  Cross  that  day:  a  boy 
earned  it  by  one  of  the  bravest  deeds  of  the  war, 
leaping  into  the  sea  with  a  rope  in  his  teeth  to 
try  to  secure  a  drifting  lighter. 

The  day  passed  thus,  but  at  nightfall  the 
Turks'  fire  paused,  and  the  men  came  ashore 


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Gallipoli  53 

from  the  River  Clyde,  almost  unharmed.  They 
joined  the  survivors  on  the  beach  and  at  once 
attacked  the  old  fort  and  the  village  above  it. 
.These  works  were  strongly  held  by  the  enemy. 
All  had  been  ruined  by  the  fire  from  the  fleet, 
but  in  the  rubble  and  ruin  of  old  masonry 
there  were  thousands  of  hidden  riflemen  backed 
by  machine  guns.  Again  and  again  they  beat 
off  our  attacks,  for  there  was  a  bright  moon 
and  they  knew  the  ground,  and  our  men  had 
to  attack  uphill  over  wire  and  broken  earth 
and  heaped  stones  in  all  the  wreck  and  con- 
fusion and  strangeness  of  war  at  night  in  a 
new  place.  Some  of  the  Dublins  and  Munsters 
went  astray  in  the  ruins,  and  were  wounded 
far  from  their  fellows  and  so  lost.  The  Turks 
became  more  daring  after  dark;  while  the  light 
lasted  they  were  checked  by  the  River  Clyde's 
machine  guns,  but  at  midnight  they  gathered 
unobserved  and  charged.  They  came  right 
down  onto  the  beach,  and  in  the  darkness  and 
moonlight  much  terrible  and  confused  fighting 
followed.  Many  were  bayoneted,  many  shot, 
there  was  wild  firing  and  crying,  and  then  the 


54  Gallipoli 

Turk  attack  melted  away,  and  their  machine 
guns  began  again.  When  day  dawned,  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  landing  party  were  crouched 
under  the  shelter  of  the  sandbank;  they  had 
had  no  rest;  most  of  them  had  been  fighting  all 
night,  all  had  landed  across  the  corpses  of  their 
friends.  No  retreat  was  possible,  nor  was  it 
dreamed  of,  but  to  stay  there  was  hopeless. 
Lieutenant  Colonel  Doughty-Wylie  gathered 
them  together  for  an  attack:  the  fleet  opened  a 
terrific  fire  upon  the  ruins  of  the  fort  and  vil- 
lage, and  the  landing  party  went  forward  again, 
fighting  from  bush  to  bush  and  from  stone  to 
stone,  till  the  ruins  were  in  their  hands.  Shells 
still  fell  among  them,  single  Turks,  lurking  un- 
der cover,  sniped  them  and  shot  them,  but  the 
landing  had  been  made  good,  and  V  beach  was 
secured  to  us. 

This  was  the  worst  and  the  bloodiest  of  all 
the  landings. 

The  Landing  at  W  Beach,  under  Cape  Tekke. 

The  men  told  off  for  this  landing  were  the 
1st  Battalion  Lancashire  Fusiliers,  supported 
(later)  by  the  Worcester  Regiment. 


Gallipoli  55 

The  men  were  landed  at  six  in  the  morning 
from  ships'  boats  run  ashore  by  picket  boats. 
On  landing,  they  rushed  the  wire  entanglements, 
broke  through  them,  with  heavy  loss,  and  won 
to  the  dead  ground  under  the  cliffs.  The  ships 
drew  nearer  to  the  beach  and  opened  heavy 
fire  upon  the  Turks,  and  the  landing  party 
stormed  the  cliffs  and  won  the  trenches. 

The  Worcester  Regiment  having  landed,  at- 
tempts were  made  to  break  a  way  to  the  right, 
so  as  to  join  hands  with  the  men  on  V  Beach. 
All  the  land  between  the  two  beaches  was 
heavily  wired  and  so  broken  that  it  gave  much 
cover  to  the  enemy.  Many  brave  Worcesters 
went  out  to  cut  the  wires  and  were  killed;  the 
fire  was  intense,  there  was  no  getting  further. 
The  trenches  already  won  were  secured  and 
improved,  the  few  available  reserves  were  hur- 
ried up,  and  by  dark,  when  the  Turks  attacked, 
again  and  again,  in  great  force,  our  men  were 
able  to  beat  them  off,  and  hold  on  to  what  they 
had  won. 


56  Gallipoli 

The  Landing  at  X  Beach  (Sometimes  called  Im- 
placable Landing),  towards  Krithia. 

The  men  told  off  for  this  landing  were  the 
1st  Royal  Fusiliers,  with  a  working  party  of 
the  Anson  Battalion,  R.  N.  D. 

These  men  were  towed  ashore  from  H.  M.  S. 
Implacable  about  an  hour  after  dawn.  The 
ship  stood  close  in  to  the  beach  and  opened 
rapid  fire  on  the  enemy  trenches:  under  cover 
of  this  fire  the  men  got  ashore  fairly  easily. 
On  moving  inland  they  were  attacked  by  a  great 
force  of  Turks  and  checked;  but  they  made 
good  the  ground  won,  and  opened  up  communi- 
cations with  the  Lancashires  who  had  landed 
at  W  Beach.  This  landing  was  the  least 
bloody  of  all. 

Of  the  two  flank  landings,  that  on  the  right, 
within  the  Straits,  to  the  right  of  Sedd-el-Bahr, 
got  ashore  without  great  loss  and  held  on; 
that  on  the  left,  to  the  left  of  X  Beach,  got 
ashore,  fought  a  desperate  and  bloody  battle 
against  five  times  its  strength,  and  finally  had  to 
re-embark.     The  men  got  ashore  upon  a  cliff 


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Gallipoli  57 

so  steep  that  the  Turks  had  not  troubled  to 
defend  it,  but  on  landing  they  were  unable  to 
link  up  with  the  men  on  X  Beach  as  had  been 
planned.  They  were  attacked  in  great  force 
by  an  ever-growing  Turkish  army,  fought  all 
day  and  all  through  the  night  in  such  trenches 
as  they  had  been  able  to  dig  under  fire,  and  at 
last  in  the  morning  of  the  next  day  went  down 
the  cliffs  and  re-embarked,  most  nobly  covered 
to  the  end  by  a  party  from  the  King's  Own  Scot- 
tish Borderers  and  the  Plymouth  Battalion. 

During  the  forenoon  of  the  25th,  a  regiment 
of  the  French  Corps  landed  at  Kum  Kale,  un- 
der cover  of  the  guns  of  the  French  warships, 
and  engaged  the  enemy  throughout  the  day 
and  night.  Their  progress  was  held  up  by  a 
strongly  entrenched  force  during  the  afternoon, 
and  after  sharp  fighting  all  through  the  night 
they  re-embarked  in  the  forenoon  of  the  26th 
with  some  400  Turkish  prisoners.  This  land- 
ing of  the  French  diverted  from  us  on  the  25th 
the  fire  of  the  howitzers  emplaced  on  the  Asi- 
atic shore.  Had  these  been  free  to  fire  upon 
us,  the  landings  near  Sedd-el-Bahr  would  have 


5  8  Gallipoli 

been  made  even  more  hazardous  than  they 
were. 

At  Bulair  one  man,  Lieutenant  Freyberg, 
swam  ashore  from  a  Destroyer,  towing  a  little 
raft  of  flares.  Near  the  shore  he  lit  two  of 
these  flares,  then,  wading  onto  the  land,  he  lit 
others  at  intervals  along  the  coast,  then  he  wan- 
dered inland,  naked,  on  a  personal  reconnais- 
sance, and  soon  found  a  large  Turkish  army 
strongly  entrenched.  Modesty  forbade  further 
intrusion.  He  went  back  to  the  beach  and 
swam  off  to  his  Destroyer,  could  not  find  her  in 
the  dark,  and  swam  for  several  miles,  was  ex- 
hausted and  cramped,  and  was  at  last  picked 
up,  nearly  dead.  This  magnificent  act  of  cour- 
age and  endurance,  done  by  one  unarmed  man, 
kept  a  large  Turkish  army  at  Bulair  during  the 
critical  hours  of  the  landing.  "  The  Constan- 
tinople papers  were  filled  with  accounts  of  the 
repulse  of  the  great  attack  at  Bulair."  The 
flares  deceived  the  Turks  even  more  completely 
than  had  been  hoped. 

While  these  operations  were  securing  our 
hold  upon  the  extreme  end  of  the  Peninsula, 


Gallipoli  59 

the  Australian  and  New  Zealand  Army  Corps 
were  making  good  their  landing  on  the  i^gean 
coast,  to  the  north  of  Gaba  Tepe.  They  sailed 
from  Mudros  on  the  24th,  arrived  off  the  coast 
of  the  Peninsula  at  about  half-past  one  on  the 
morning  of  the  25th,  and  there  under  a  setting 
moon,  in  calm  weather,  they  went  on  board  the 
boats  which  were  to  take  them  ashore.  At 
about  half-past  three  the  tows  left  the  ships 
and  proceeded  in  darkness  to  the  coast. 

Gaba  or  Kaba  Tepe  is  a  steep  cliff  or  prom- 
ontory about  70  feet  high  with  a  whitish  nose 
and  something  the  look  of  a  blunt-nosed  tor- 
pedo or  porpoise.  It  is  a  forbidding-looking 
snout  of  land,  covered  with  scrub  where  it  is 
not  too  steep  for  roots  to  hold,  and  washed  by 
deep  water.  About  a  mile  to  the  north  of  it 
there  is  a  possible  landing  place,  and  north  of 
that  again  a  long  and  narrow  strip  of  beach 
between  two  little  headlands.  This  latter 
beach  cannot  be  seen  from  Gaba  Tepe.  The 
ground  above  these  beaches  is  exceedingly  steep 
sandy  cliff,  broken  by  two  great  gulleys  or  ra- 
vines, which  run  inland.     All  the  ground,  ex- 


60  Gallipoli 

cept  in  one  patch  in  the  southern  ravine,  where 
there  is  a  sort  of  meadow  of  grass,  is  densely 
covered  with  scrub,  mostly  between  two  and 
three  feet  high.  Inland  from  the  beach,  the 
land  of  the  Peninsula  rises  in  steep,  broken  hills 
and  spurs,  with  clumps  of  pine  upon  them,  and 
dense  undergrowths  of  scrub.  The  men  se- 
lected for  this  landing  were  the  3rd  Brigade 
of  the  Australian  and  New  Zealand  Army 
Corps,  followed  and  supported  by  the  1st  and 
2nd  Brigades. 

The  place  selected  for  the  landing  was  the 
southern  beach  and  nearer  of  the  two  to  Gaba 
Tepe.  This,  like  the  other  landing  places  near 
Cape  Helles,  was  strongly  defended,  and  most 
difficult  of  approach.  Large  forces  of  Turks 
were  entrenched  there,  well  prepared.  But  in 
the  darkness  of  the  early  morning  after  the 
moon  had  set  the  tows  stood  a  little  further 
to  the  north  than  they  should  have  done,  per- 
haps because  some  high  ground  to  their  left 
made  a  convenient  steering  mark  against  the 
stars.  They  headed  in  towards  the  northern 
beach  between  the  two  little  headlands,  where 


Gallipoli  6 1 

the  Turks  were  not  expecting  them.  How- 
ever, they  were  soon  seen  and  very  heavy  in- 
dependent rifle  fire  was  concentrated  on  them. 
As  they  neared  the  beach  "  about  one  battalion 
of  Turks  "  doubled  along  the  land  to  intercept 
them.  These  men  came  from  nearer  Gaba 
Tepe,  firing  as  they  ran,  into  the  mass  of  the 
boats  at  short  range.  A  great  many  men  were 
killed  in  the  boats,  but  the  dead  men's  oars 
were  taken  by  survivors,  and  the  boats  forced 
into  the  shingle.  The  men  jumped  out,  waded 
ashore,  charged  the  enemy  with  the  bayonet, 
and  broke  the  Turk  attack  to  pieces.  The 
Turks  scattered  and  were  pursued,  and  now 
the  steep  scrub-covered  cliffs  became  the  scene 
of  the  most  desperate  fighting. 

The  scattered  Turks  dropped  into  the  scrub 
and  disappeared.  Hidden  all  over  the  rough 
cliffs,  under  every  kind  of  cover,  they  sniped 
the  beach  or  ambushed  the  little  parties  of 
the  3rd  Brigade  who  had  rushed  the  landing. 
All  over  the  broken  hills  there  were  isolated 
fights  to  the  death,  men  falling  into  gullies  and 
being   bayoneted,    sudden    duels,    point   blank, 


6  2  Galli  poll 

where  men  crawling  through  the  scrub  met 
each  other  and  life  went  to  the  quicker  finger, 
heroic  deaths,  where  some  half  section  which 
had  lost  touch  were  caught  by  ten  times  their 
strength  and  charged  and  died.  No  man  of 
our  side  knew  that  cracked  and  fissured  jungle. 
Men  broke  through  it  on  to  machine  guns,  or 
showed  up  on  a  crest  and  were  blown  to  pieces, 
or  leaped  down  from  it  into  some  sap  or  trench, 
to  catch  the  bombs  flung  at  them  and  hurl  them 
at  the  thrower.  Going  as  they  did,  up  cliffs, 
through  scrub,  over  ground  which  would  have 
broken  the  alignment  of  the  Tenth  Legion, 
they  passed  many  hidden  Turks,  who  were  thus 
left  to  shoot  them  in  the  back  or  to  fire  down 
at  the  boats,  from  perhaps  only  fifty  yards 
away.  It  was  only  just  light,  theirs  was  the 
first  British  survey  of  that  wild  country;  only 
now,  as  it  showed  up  clear,  could  they  realise 
its  difficulty.  They  pressed  on  up  the  hill. 
They  dropped  and  fired  and  died;  they  drove 
the  Turks  back,  they  flung  their  packs  away, 
wormed  through  the  bush  and  stalked  the  snip- 
ers from  the  flash.     As  they  went,  the  words 


Gallipoli  63 

of  their  song  supported  them,  the  ribald  and 
proud  chorus  of  "  Australia  will  be  there," 
which  the  men  on  the  torpedoed  Southland 
sang,  as  they  fell  in,  expecting  death.  Pres- 
ently, as  it  grew  lighter,  the  Turks'  big  howitz- 
ers began  shelling  the  beach,  and  their  field 
guns,  well-hidden,  opened  on  the  transports 
now  busy  disembarking  the  1st  and  2nd  Bri- 
gades. They  forced  the  transports  to  stand 
further  out  to  sea,  and  shelled  the  tows,  as 
they  came  in,  with  shrapnel  and  high  explosive. 
As  the  boats  drew  near  the  shore  every  gun  on 
Gaba  Tepe  took  them  in  flank  and  the  snipers 
concentrated  on  them  from  the  shore.  More 
and  more  Turks  were  coming  up  at  the  double 
to  stop  the  attack  up  the  hill.  The  fighting  in 
the  scrub  grew  fiercer;  shells  burst  continually 
upon  the  beach,  boats  were  sunk,  men  were 
killed  in  the  water.  The  boatmen  and  beach- 
working-parties  were  the  unsung  heroes  of  that 
landing.  The  boatmen  came  in  with  the  tows, 
under  fire,  waited  with  them  under  intense  and 
concentrated  fire  of  every  kind,  until  they  were 
unloaded,  and  then  shoved  off,  and  put  slowly 


64  Gallipoli 

back  for  more*  and  then  came  back  again. 
The  beach  parties  were  wading  to  and  from 
that  shell-smitten  beach  all  day,  unloading, 
carrying  ashore  and  sorting  the  munitions  and 
necessaries  for  many  thousands  of  men.  They 
worked  in  a  strip  of  beach  and  sea  from  500 
yards  long  by  40  broad,  and  the  fire  directed 
on  that  strip  was  such  that  every  box  brought 
ashore  had  one  or  more  shells  and  not  less  than 
fifty  bullets  directed  at  it  before  it  was  flung 
upon  the  sand.  More  men  came  in  and  went 
on  up  the  hill  in  support;  but  as  yet  there  were 
no  guns  ashore,  and  the  Turks'  fire  became  in- 
tenser.  By  ten  o'clock  the  Turks  had  had  time 
to  bring  up  enough  men  from  their  prepared 
positions  to  hold  up  the  advance.  Scattered 
parties  of  our  men  who  had  gone  too  far  in 
the  scrub,  were  cut  off  and  killed,  for  there  was 
no  thought  of  surrender  in  those  marvellous 
young  men;  they  were  the  flower  of  this  world's 
manhood,  and  died  as  they  had  lived,  owning 
no  master  on  this  earth.  More  and  more 
Turks  came  up  with  big  and  field  artillery,  and 
now  our  attack  had  to  hold  on  to  what  It  had 


Gallipoli  6$ 

won,  against  more  than  twice  its  numbers.  We 
had  won  a  rough  bow  of  ground,  in  which  the 
beach  represented  the  bow  string,  the  beach 
near  Gaba  Tepe  the  south  end,  and  the  hovel 
known  as  Fisherman's  Hut  the  north.  Against 
this  position,  held  by  at  most  8,000  of  our  men, 
who  had  had  no  rest  and  had  fought  hard  since 
dawn,  under  every  kind  of  fire  in  a  savage 
rough  country  unknown  to  them,  came  an  over- 
whelming army  of  Turks  to  drive  them  into  the 
sea.  For  four  hours  the  Turks  attacked  and 
again  attacked,  with  a  terrific  fire  of  artillery 
and  waves  of  men  in  succession.  They  came 
fresh,  from  superior  positions,  with  many  guns, 
to  break  a  disorganised  line  of  breathless  men 
not  yet  dug  in.  The  guns  of  the  ships  opened 
on  them,  and  the  scattered  units  in  the  scrub 
rolled  them  back  again  and  again  by  rifle  and 
machine  gun  fire,  and  by  charge  after  counter- 
charge. More  of  the  Army  Corps  landed  to 
meet  the  Turks,  the  fire  upon  the  beach  never 
slackened,  and  they  came  ashore  across  corpses 
and  wrecked  boats  and  a  path  like  a  road  in 
hell  with  ruin  and  blasts  and  burning.     They 


66  Galli  poll 

went  up  the  cliff  to  their  fellows  under  an  ever- 
growing fire,  that  lit  the  scrub  and  burned  the 
wounded  and  the  dead.  Darkness  came,  but 
there  was  no  rest  nor  lull.  Wave  after  wave 
of  Turks  came  out  of  the  night,  crying  the 
proclamation  of  their  faith;  others  stole  up  in 
the  dark  through  the  scrub  and  shot  or  stabbed 
and  crept  back,  or  were  seen  and  stalked  and 
killed.  Flares  went  up,  to  light  with  their  blue 
and  ghastly  glare  the  wild  glens  peopled  by 
the  enemy.  Men  worked  at  the  digging-in  till 
they  dropped  asleep  upon  the  soil,  and  more 
Turks  charged  and  they  woke  and  fired  and 
again  dug.  It  was  cruelly  cold  after  the  sun 
had  gone,  but  there  was  no  chance  of  warmth 
or  proper  food;  to  dig-in  and  beat  back  the 
Turk  or  die  was  all  that  men  could  think  of. 
In  the  darkness,  among  the  blasts  of  the  shells, 
men  scrambled  up  and  down  the  pathless  cliffs 
bringing  up  tins  of  water  and  boxes  of  cart- 
ridges, hauling  up  guns  and  shells,  and  bring- 
ing down  the  wounded.  The  beach  was  heaped 
with  wounded,  placed  as  close  under  the  cliff 
as  might  be,  in  such  yard  or  so  of  dead  ground 


Galli  poll  67 

as  the  cliffs  gave.  The  doctors  worked  among 
them  and  shells  fell  among  them  and  doctors 
and  wounded  were  blown  to  pieces,  and  the  sur- 
vivors sang  their  song  of  "  Australia  will  be 
there,"  and  cheered  the  newcomers  still  land- 
ing on  the  beach.  Sometimes  our  fire  seemed 
to  cease  and  then  the  Turk  shells  filled  the 
night  with  their  scream  and  blast  and  the  pat- 
tering of  their  fragments.  With  all  the  fury 
and  the  crying  of  the  shells,  and  the  shouts  and 
cries  and  cursing  on  the  beach,  the  rattle  of  the 
small  arms  and  the  cheers  and  defiance  up  the 
hill,  and  the  roar  of  the  great  guns  far  away, 
at  sea,  or  in  the  olive  groves,  the  night  seemed 
in  travail  of  a  new  age.  All  the  blackness  was 
shot  with  little  spurts  of  fire,  and  streaks  of 
fire,  and  malignant  bursts  of  fire,  and  arcs  and 
glows  and  crawling  snakes  of  fire,  and  the  moon 
rose,  and  looked  down  upon  it  all.  In  the 
fiercer  hours  of  that  night  shells  fell  in  that  con- 
tested mile  of  ground  and  on  the  beach  beyond 
it  at  the  rate  of  one  a  second,  and  the  air  whim- 
pered with  passing  bullets,  or  fluttered  with  the 
rush  of  the  big  shells,  or  struck  the  head  of 


68  Gallipoli 

the  passer  like  a  moving  wall  with  the  shock 
of  the  explosion.  All  through  the  night,  the 
Turks  attacked,  and  in  the  early  hours  their 
fire  of  shrapnel  became  so  hellish  that  the  Aus- 
tralians soon  had  not  men  enough  left  to  hold 
the  line.  Orders  were  given  to  fall  back  to  a 
shorter  line,  but  in  the  darkness,  uproar  and 
confusion,  with  many  sections  refusing  to  fall 
back,  others  falling  back  and  losing  touch, 
others  losing  their  way  in  gully  or  precipice,  and 
shrapnel  hailing  on  all,  as  it  had  hailed  for 
hours,  the  falling  back  was  mistaken  by  some 
for  an  order  to  re-embark.  Many  men  who 
had  lost  their  officers  and  non-commissioned  of- 
ficers fell  back  to  the  beach,  where  the  confu- 
sion of  wounded  men,  boxes  of  stores,  field 
dressing  stations,  corpses  and  the  litter  and  the 
waste  of  battle,  had  already  blocked  the  going. 
The  shells  bursting  in  this  clutter  made  the 
beach,  in  the  words  of  an  eye-witness,  "  like 
bloody  hell  and  nothing  else."  But  at  this 
breaking  of  the  wave  of  victory,  this  panting 
moment  in  the  race,  when  some  of  the  runners 
had  lost  their  first  wind,  encouragement  reached 


Galli  poll  69 

our  men:  a  message  came  to  the  beach  from  Sir 
Ian  Hamilton,  to  say  that  help  was  coming, 
and  that  an  Australian  submarine  had  entered 
the  Narrows  and  had  sunk  a  Turkish  transport 
off  Chanak. 

This  word  of  victory,  coming  to  men  who 
thought  for  the  moment  that  their  efforts  had 
been  made  in  vain,  had  the  effect  of  a  fresh  bri- 
gade. The  men  rallied  back  up  the  hill;  bear- 
ing the  news  to  the  firing-line,  the  new,  con- 
stricted line  was  made  good,  and  the  rest  of 
the  night  was  never  anything  but  continued  vic- 
tory to  those  weary  ones  in  the  scrub.  But 
24  hours  of  continual  battle  exhausts  men,  and 
by  dawn  the  Turks,  knowing  the  weariness  of 
our  men,  resolved  to  beat  them  down  into  the 
sea.  When  the  sun  was  well  in  our  men's 
eyes  they  attacked  again,  with  not  less  than 
twice  our  entire  strength  of  fresh  men,  and  with 
an  overwhelming  superiority  in  field  artillery.* 
Something  in  the  Turk  commander  and  the 
knowledge  that  a  success  there  would  bring  our 
men  across  the  peninsula  within  a  day,  made 
the  Turks  more  desperate  enemies  there  than 


70  Gallipoli 

elsewhere.  They  came  at  us  with  a  determina- 
tion which  might  have  triumphed  against  other 
troops.  As  they  came  on  they  opened  a  ter- 
rific fire  of  shrapnel  upon  our  position,  pouring 
in  such  a  hail  that  months  afterwards  one  could 
see  their  round  shrapnel  bullets  stuck  in  bare 
patches  of  ground,  or  in  earth  thrown  up  from 
the  trenches,  as  thickly  as  plums  in  a  pudding. 
Their  multitudes  of  men  pressed  through  the 
scrub  as  skirmishers,  and  sniped  at  every  mov- 
ing thing;  for  they  were  on  higher  ground  and 
could  see  over  most  of  our  position,  and  every 
man  we  had  was  under  direct  fire  for  hours 
of  each  day.  As  the  attack  developed,  the 
promised  help  arrived,  our  warships  stood  in 
and  opened  on  the  Turks  with  every  gun  that 
would  bear.  Some  kept  down  the  guns  of 
Gaba  Tepe,  others  searched  the  line  of  the 
Turk  advance,  till  the  hills  over  which  they 
came  were  swathed  with  yellow  smoke  and  dust, 
the  white  clouds  of  shrapnel,  and  the  drifting 
darkness  of  conflagration.  All  the  scrub  was 
in  a  blaze  before  them,  but  they  pressed  on, 
falling    in    heaps    and    lines;    and    their    guns 


Gallipoli  7 1 

dropped  a  never-ceasing  rain  of  shells  on 
trenches,  beach  and  shipping.  The  landing  of 
stores  and  ammunition  never  ceased  during  the 
battle.  The  work  of  the  beach-parties  in  that 
scene  of  burning  and  massacre  was  beyond  all 
praise:  so  was  the  work  of  the  fatigue  parties 
who  passed  up  and  down  the  hill  with  water, 
ammunition  and  food,  or  dug  sheltered  roads 
to  the  trenches;  so  was  the  work  of  the  Medical 
Service,  who  got  the  wounded  out  of  cuts  in  the 
earth,  so  narrow  and  so  twisted  that  there  was 
no  using  a  stretcher  and  men  had  to  be  carried 
on  stretcher  bearers'  backs  or  on  improvised 
chairs  made  out  of  packing  cases. 

At  a  little  before  noon  the  Turk  attack 
reached  its  height  in  a  blaze  and  uproar  of 
fire,  and  the  swaying  forward  of  their  multi- 
tudes. The  guns  of  the  warships  swept  them 
from  flank  to  flank  with  every  engine  of  death: 
they  died  by  hundreds,  and  the  attack  withered 
as  it  came.  Our  men  saw  the  enemy  fade  and 
slacken  and  halt;  then  with  their  cheer  they 
charged  him  and  beat  him  home,  seized  new 
ground  from  him,   and  dug  themselves  in  in 


72  Gallipoli 

front  of  him.  All  through  the  day  there  was 
fighting  up  and  down  the  line,  partial  attacks, 
and  never-ceasing  shell-fire,  but  no  other  great 
attack,  the  Turks  had  suffered  too  much.  At 
night  their  snipers  came  out  in  the  scrub  and 
shot  at  anything  they  could  see,  and  all  night 
long  their  men  dragged  up  field  guns  and  piles 
of  shrapnel,  and  worked  at  the  trenches  which 
were  to  contain  ours.  When  day  dawned,  they 
opened  with  shrapnel  upon  the  beach,  with  a 
feu  de  barrage  designed  to  stop  all  landing  of 
men  and  stores.  They  whipped  the  bay  with 
shrapnel  bullets.  Where  their  fire  was  concen- 
trated, the  water  was  lashed  as  with  hail  all 
day  long;  but  the  boats  passed  through  it,  and 
men  worked  in  it,  building  jetties  for  the  boats 
to  land  at,  using  a  big  Turk  shell  as  a  pile 
driver:  when  they  got  too  hot  they  bathed  in 
it,  for  no  fire  shook  those  men.  It  was  said, 
that  when  a  big  shell  was  coming,  men  of  other 
races  would  go  into  their  dugouts,  but  that  these 
men  paused  only  to  call  it  a  bastard  and  then 
went  on  with  their  work. 

By  the  night  of  the  second  day,   the  Aus- 


Gallipoli  73 

tralian  and  New  Zealand  Army  Corps  had  won 
and  fortified  their  position.  Men  writing  or 
reporting  on  service  about  them  referred  to 
them  as  the  A.  N.  Z.  A.  C,  and  these  letters 
soon  came  to  mean  the  place  in  which  they  were, 
un-named  till  then,  probably,  save  by  some 
rough  Turkish  place-name,  but  now  likely  to 
be  printed  on  all  English  maps,  with  the  other 
names,  of  Brighton  Beach  and  Hell  Spit,  which 
mark  a  great  passage  of  arms. 


Ill 

King  Marsilies  parted  his  army:  ten  columns  he 
kept  by  him,  and  the  other  ten  rode  in  to  fight.  The 
Franks  said:  "God,  what  ruin  we  shall  have  here. 
What  will  become  of  the  twelve  Peers?  "  The  Arch- 
bishop Turpin  answered  first:  "Good  knights,  you 
are  the  friends  of  God;  to-day  you  will  be  crowned 
and  flowered,  resting  in  the  holy  flowers  of  Paradise, 
where  no  coward  will  ever  come." 

The  Franks  answered :  "  We  will  not  fail.  If  it 
be  God's  will,  we  will  not  murmur.  We  will  fight 
against  our  enemies:  we  are  few  men,  but  well-hard- 
ened." 

They  spurred  forward  to  fight  the  pagans.  The 
Franks  and  Saracens  are  mingled. 

The  Song  of  Roland. 


This  early  fighting,  which  lasted  from  dawn 
on  the  25th  April  till  noon  on  the  following 
day,  won  us  a  footing,  not  more  than  that,  on 
the  Peninsula;  it  settled  the  German  brag  that 
we  should  never  be  able  to  land.  We  had 
landed  upon,  had  taken,  and  were  holding  the 
whole  of  the  southwestern  extremity  of  the 
Peninsula  and  a  strip  of  the  iEgean  coast,  in 
the  face  of  an  army  never  less  than  twice  our 
strength,  strongly  entrenched  and  well  supplied. 
We  had  lost  very  heavily  in  the  attack,  our 
men  were  weary  from  the  exceedingly  severe 
service  of  the  landing,  but  the  morrow  began 
the  second  passage  in  the  campaign,  the  advance 
from  the  sea,  before  the  Turks  should  have  re- 
covered. 

Many  have  said  to  me,  with  a  naivete  that 
would  be  touching  if  it  were  not  so  plainly  in- 
spired by  our  enemies:  "Why  did  not  the 
troops  press  on  at  once,  the  day  they  landed? 

The  Japanese  pressed  on  the  day  they  landed, 

77 


78  Gallipoli 

so  did  the  Americans  in  Cuba.  If  you  had 
pressed  on  at  once,  you  would  have  won  the 
whole  Peninsula.  The  Turks  were  at  their  last 
cartridge,  and  would  have  surrendered." 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  Japanese  moved  in- 
land immediately  from  their  transports  at 
Chemulpho  and  Chinampo.  Those  ports  were 
seized  before  the  Russians  knew  that  war  was 
declared:  they  were  not  defended  by  Russian 
soldiers,  and  the  two  small  Russian  cruisers 
caught  there  by  the  Japanese  fleet  were  put  out 
of  action  before  the  transports  discharged. 
The  Japanese  were  free  to  land  as  they  chose 
on  beaches  prepared,  not  with  machine  guns 
and  mines,  but  with  cranes,  gangways  and  good 
roads.  Even  so,  they  did  not  press  on.  The 
Japanese  do  not  press  on  unless  they  are  at- 
tacking: they  are  as  prudent  as  they  are  brave: 
they  waited  till  they  were  ready  and  then 
marched  on.  The  Americans  landed  at  Dai- 
quiri and  at  Guanica  unopposed  and  in  neither 
case  engaged  the  enemy  till  next  day. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  tried  to  show 
why  we  did  not  press  on  at  once,  after  land- 


Gallipoli  79 

ing.  We  did  not,  because  we  could  not,  be- 
cause two  fresh  men  strongly  entrenched,  with 
machine  guns,  will  stop  one  tired  man  with  a 
rifle  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten.  Our  men  had 
done  the  unimaginable  in  getting  ashore  at  all, 
they  could  not  do  the  impossible  on  the  same 
day.  I  used  to  say  this,  to  draw  the  answer, 
"  Well,  other  troops  would  have  done  it,"  so 
that  I  might  say,  what  I  know  to  be  the  truth, 
that  no  other  men  on  this  earth  either  would 
have  or  could  have  made  good  the  landing; 
and  that  the  men  have  not  yet  been  born  who 
could  have  advanced  after  such  a  feat  of  arms. 
The  efforts  of  men  are  limited  by  their 
strength:  the  strength  of  men,  always  easily 
exhausted,  is  the  only  strength  at  the  disposal 
of  a  general,  it  is  the  money  to  be  spent  by 
him  in  the  purchase  of  victory,  whether  by 
hours  of  marching  in  the  mud,  digging  in  the 
field,  or  in  attack.  Losses  in  attack  are  great, 
though  occasional,  losses  from  other  causes 
are  great  and  constant.  All  armies  in  the  field 
have  to  be  supplied  constantly  with  fresh  drafts 
to  make  good  the  losses  from  attack  and  ex- 


80  Gallipoli 

haustion.  No  armies  can  move  without  these 
replenishments,  just  as  no  individual  men  can 
go  on  working,  after  excessive  labour,  without 
rest  and  food.  Our  losses  in  the  landings  were 
severe,  even  for  modern  war,  even  for  the 
Dardanelles.  The  bloodiest  battle  of  modern 
times  is  said  to  have  been  Antietam  or  Sharps- 
burg,  in  the  American  Civil  War,  where  the 
losses  were  perhaps  nearly  one-third  of  the 
men  engaged.  At  V  Beach  the  Munsters  lost 
more  than  one-third,  and  the  Dublins  more 
than  three-fifths  of  their  total  strength.  The 
Lancashires  at  W  Beach  lost  nearly  as  heavily 
as  the  Dublins.  At  Anzac,  one  Australian  bat- 
talion lost  422  out  of  900.  At  X  Beach,  the 
Royals  lost  487  out  of  979.  All  these  battal- 
ions had  lost  more  than  half  their  officers,  in- 
deed by  the  28th  April  the  Dublins  had  only 
one  officer  left.  How  could  these  dwindled 
battalions  press  on? 

Then  for  the  individual  exhaustion.  Those 
engaged  in  the  first  landing  were  clambering 
and  fighting  in  great  heat,  without  proper  food, 
and  in  many  cases  without  water,  for  the  first 


Gallipoli  8 1 

24  or  36  hours,  varying  the  fighting  with  hur- 
ried but  deep  digging  in  marl  or  clay,  getting 
no  sleep,  nor  any  moment's  respite  from  the 
peril  of  death.  Then,  at  the  end  of  the  first 
phase,  when  the  fact  that  they  had  won  the 
landing  was  plain,  some  of  these  same  men, 
unrested,  improperly  fed,  and  wet  through 
with  rain,  sweat  and  the  sea,  had  to  hold  what 
they  had  won,  while  the  others  went  down  to 
the  beach  to  make  piers,  quarry  roads,  dig  shel- 
ters, and  wade  out  to  carry  or  drag  on  shore 
food,  drink,  munitions  and  heavy  guns,  and  to 
do  this  without  appliances,  by  the  strength  of 
their  arms.  Then  when  these  things  had  been 
done  almost  to  the  limit  of  human  endurance, 
they  carried  water,  food  and  ammuniton  to  the 
trenches,  not  in  carts  but  on  their  backs,  and 
then  relieved  their  fellows  in  the  trenches  and 
withstood  the  Turk  attacks  and  replied  to  the 
Turks'  fire  for  hours  on  end.  At  Anzac  the 
A.  N.  Z.  Army  Corps  had  "  96  hours'  continu- 
ous fighting  in  the  trenches  with  little  or  no 
sleep  "  and  "  at  no  time  during  the  96  hours 
did  the  Turks'  firing  cease,  although  it  varied 


82  Gallipoli 

in  volume;  at  times  the  fusillade  was  simply 
deafening."  Men  worked  like  this,  to  the 
limit  of  physical  endurance,  under  every  possi- 
ble exposure  to  wet,  heat,  cold,  death,  hunger, 
thirst  and  want  of  rest,  become  exhausted,  and 
their  nerves  shattered,  not  from  fear,  which 
was  a  thing  those  men  did  not  understand,  but 
because  the  machine  breaks.  On  the  top  of  the 
misery,  exhaustion  and  nerve-ceasing  peril,  is 
"  the  dreadful  anxiety  of  not  knowing  how  the 
battle  is  progressing,"  and  the  still  worse  anx- 
iety of  vigilance.  To  the  strain  of  keeping 
awake,  when  dead-beat,  is  added  the  strain  of 
watching  men,  peering  for  spies,  stalking  for 
snipers  and  listening  for  bombing-parties.  Un- 
der all  these  strains  the  minds  of  strong  men 
give  way.  They  are  the  intensest  strains  ever 
put  upon  intelligences.  Men  subjected  to  them 
for  many  hours  at  a  time  cannot  at  once  "  press 
on,"  however  brave  their  hearts  may  be. 
Those  who  are  unjust  enough  to  think  that  they 
can,  or  could,  should  work  for  a  summer's  day, 
without  food  or  drink,  at  digging,  then  work 
for  a  night  in  the  rain  carrying  heavy  boxes, 


Gallipoli  83 

then  dig  for  some  hours  longer,  and  at  the  end 
ask  me  to  fire  a  machine  gun  at  them  while  they 
"  press  on,"  across  barbed  wire,  in  what  they 
presume  to  be  the  proper  manner. 

Our  men  could  not  "  press  on "  at  once. 
They  had  not  enough  unwounded  men  to  do 
more  than  hold  the  hordes  of  fresh  Turks  con- 
tinually brought  up  against  them.  They  had 
no  guns  ashore  to  prepare  an  advance,  nor 
enough  rifle  ammunition  to  stand  a  siege. 
They  had  the  rations  in  their  packs  and  the 
water  in  their  bottles,  and  no  other  supplies 
but  the  seven  days*  food,  water  and  rifle  ammu- 
nition put  into  each  boat  at  the  landing.  To 
get  men,  stores,  water  and  guns  ashore,  under 
fire,  on  beaches  without  wharves,  cranes  or  der- 
ricks of  any  kind,  takes  time,  and  until  men  and 
goods  were  landed  no  advance  was  possible. 
Until  then,  our  task  was  not  to  press  on,  but  to 
hang  on,  like  grim  death.  It  was  for  the 
enemy  to  press  on,  to  beat  our  tired  troops  be- 
fore their  supports  could  be  landed,  and  this 
the  Turks  very  well  understood,  as  their  cap- 
tured  orders    show,    and    as   their   behaviour 


84  Gallipoli 

showed  only  too  clearly.  During  the  days 
which  followed  the  landing,  the  Turks,  far 
from  being  at  their  last  cartridge,  and  eager  to 
surrender,  prevented  our  pressing  on,  by  press- 
ing on  themselves,  in  immense  force  and  with  a 
great  artillery,  till  our  men  were  dying  of  fa- 
tigue in  driving  back  their  attacks. 

One  point  more  may  be  discussed,  before  re- 
suming the  story.  The  legend,  "  that  the 
Turks  were  at  their  last  cartridge  and  would 
have  surrendered  had  we  advanced,"  is  very 
widely  spread  abroad  by  German  emissaries. 
It  appears  in  many  forms,  in  print,  in  the  lec- 
ture and  in  conversation.  Sometimes  place  and 
date  are  given,  sometimes  the  authority,  all  con- 
fidently, but  always  differently.  It  is  well  to 
state  here  the  truth  so  that  the  lie  may  be 
known.  The  Turks  were  never  at  the  end  of 
their  supplies.  They  were  always  better  and 
more  certainly  supplied  with  shells  and  cart- 
ridges than  we  were.  If  they  were  ever  (as 
perhaps  they  sometimes  were)  rather  short  of 
big  gun  ammunition,  so  were  we.  If  they  were 
sometimes  rather  short  of  rifles  and  rifle  am- 


Gallipoli  85 

munition,  so  were  we.  If  they  were  often  short 
of  food  and  all-precious  water,  so  were  we,  and 
more  so,  and  doubly  more  so.  For  all  our  sup- 
plies came  over  hundreds  of  miles  of  stormy 
water  infested  by  submarines  and  were  landed 
on  open  beaches  under  shell  fire,  and  their  sup- 
plies came  along  the  Asiatic  coast  and  by  ferry 
across  the  Hellespont,  and  thence,  in  compara- 
tive safety,  by  road  to  the  trenches.  The 
Turkish  army  was  well  supplied,  well  equipped, 
more  numerous  and  in  better  positions  than  our 
own.  There  was  neither  talk  nor  thought 
among  them  at  any  time  of  surrender,  nor  could 
there  have  been,  in  an  army  so  placed  and  so 
valiant.  There  was  some  little  disaffection 
among  them.  They  hated  their  German  offi- 
cers and  the  German  methods  of  discipline  so 
much  that  many  prisoners  when  taken  expressed 
pleasure  at  being  taken,  spat  at  the  name  of 
German,  and  said  "  English  good,  German 
bad."  Some  of  this,  however,  may  have  been 
Levantine  tact. 

Late  on  the   26th  April,  the  French  corps 
landed  men  at  V  Beach  and  took  the  trenches 


86  Gallipoli 

on  the  right  of  the  ground  won,  i.e.,  towards 
the  Straits.  At  noon  the  next  day  the  whole 
force  advanced  inland  without  much  opposition, 
for  rather  more  than  a  mile.  At  nightfall  on 
the  27th,  they  held  a  line  across  the  Peninsula 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Sighir  watercourse  (on 
the  iEgean)  to  Eski  Hissarlik  (on  the  Straits). 
The  men  were  very  weary  from  the  incessant 
digging  of  trenches,  fighting,  and  dragging  up  of 
stores  from  the  beach.  They  dug  themselves 
in  under  shell  and  rifle  fire,  stood  to  their  arms 
to  repel  Turk  attacks  for  most  of  the  night,  and 
at  eight  next  morning  began  the  battle  of  the 
28th  of  April.  The  French  corps  was  on  the 
right.  The  29th  Division  (with  one  battalion 
of  the  R.  N.  Division),  on  the  left.  They  ad- 
vanced across  rough  moorland  and  little  culti- 
vated patches  to  attack  the  Turk  town  of 
Krithia.  All  the  ground  over  which  they  ad- 
vanced gave  cover  of  the  best  kind  to  the  de- 
fence. All  through  the  morning,  at  odd  times, 
the  creeping  companies  going  over  that  broken 
country  came  suddenly  under  the  fire  of  ma- 
chine   guns,    and   lost   men   before   they   could 


Gallipoli  87 

fling  themselves  down.  In  the  heather  and 
torrent-beds  of  the  Scotch-looking  moorland 
the  Turk  had  only  to  wait  in  cover  till  his 
targets  appeared,  climbing  a  wall  or  getting  out 
of  a  gulley,  then  he  could  turn  on  his  machine 
guns,  at  six  hundred  shots  a  minute  each,  and 
hold  up  the  advance.  From  time  to  time  the 
Turks  attacked  in  great  numbers.  Early  in 
the  afternoon  our  advance  reached  its  furthest 
point,  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile  from 
Krithia.  Our  artillery,  short  of  ammunition 
at  the  best  of  times,  and  in  these  early  days 
short  of  guns,  too,  did  what  it  could,  though 
it  had  only  shrapnel,  which  is  of  small  service 
against  an  entrenched  enemy.  Those  who 
were  there  have  said  that  nothing  depressed 
them  more  than  the  occasional  shells  from  our 
guns  in  answer  to  the  continual  fire  from  the 
Turk  artillery.  They  felt  themselves  out- 
gunned and  without  support.  Rifle  cartridges 
were  running  short,  for,  in  spite  of  desperate 
efforts,  in  that  roadless  wild  land  with  the 
beaches  jammed  with  dead,  wounded,  stores, 
the  wrecks  of  boats,  and  parties  trying  to  build 


88  Gallipoli 

piers  under  shell-fire,  it  was  not  possible  to 
land  or  to  send  up  cartridges  in  the  quantity 
needed.  There  were  not  yet  enough  mules 
ashore  to  take  the  cartridge-boxes  and  men 
could  not  be  spared;  there  were  too  few  men  to 
hold  the  line.  Gradually  our  men  fell  back 
a  little  from  the  ground  they  had  won.  The 
Turks  brought  up  more  men,  charged  us,  and 
drove  us  back  a  little  more,  and  were  then 
themselves  held.  Our  men  dug  themselves  in 
as  best  they  could  and  passed  another  anxious 
night,  in  bitter  cold  and  driving  rain,  staving 
off  a  Turk  attack,  which  was  pressed  with  reso- 
lute courage  against  our  centre  and  the  French 
corps  to  the  right  of  it.  There  were  very 
heavy  losses  on  both  sides,  but  the  Turks  were 
killed  in  companies  at  every  point  of  attack  and 
failed  to  drive  us  further. 

The  next  two  days  were  passed  in  compara- 
tive quiet,  in  strengthening  the  lines,  landing 
men,  guns  and  stores  and  preparing  for  the 
next  advance.  This  war  has  shown  what  an 
immense  reserve  of  shell  is  needed  to  prepare 
a  modern  advance.     Our  men  never  had  that 


Gallipoli  89 

immense  reserve,  nor,  indeed  a  large  reserve, 
and  in  those  early  days  they  had  no  reserve  at 
all,  but  a  day  to  day  allowance,  and  before  a 
reserve  was  formed  the  Turks  came  down  upon 
us  with  every  man  and  gun  they  had,  in  the  des- 
perate night  attack  of  the  1st  of  May.  This 
began  with  shell-fire  at  ten  p.  M.,  and  was  fol- 
lowed half-an-hour  later  by  a  succession  of 
charges  in  close  order.  The  Turk  front  ranks 
crept  up  on  hands  and  knees  without  firing 
(their  cartridges  had  been  taken  from  them) 
and  charged  our  trenches  with  the  bayonet. 
They  got  into  our  trenches  in  the  dark,  bayo- 
neted the  men  in  them,  broke  our  line,  got 
through  to  the  second  line  and  were  there 
mixed  up  in  the  night  in  a  welter  of  killing  and 
firing  beyond  description.  The  moon  had  not 
risen  when  the  attack  came  home.  The  fight- 
ing took  place  in  the  dark:  men  fired  and 
stabbed  in  all  directions,  at  flashes,  at  shouts, 
by  the  burning  of  the  flares,  by  the  coloured 
lights  of  the  Turk  officers,  and  by  the  gleams 
of  the  shells  on  our  right.  There  were  9,000 
Turks   in   the   first  line,    12,000  more  behind 


90  Gallipoli 

them.  They  advanced  yelling  for  God  and 
Enver  Pasha,  amid  the  roar  of  every  gun  and 
rifle  in  range.  They  broke  through  the  French, 
were  held,  then  driven  back,  then  came  again, 
bore  everything  before  them,  and  then  met  the 
British  supports  and  went  no  further.  Our 
supports  charged  the  Turks  and  beat  them 
back;  at  dawn  our  entire  line  advanced  and 
beat  them  back  in  a  rout,  till  their  machine  guns 
stopped  us. 

Upon  many  of  the  dead  Turks  in  front  of 
the  French  and  English  trenches  were  copies 
of  an  address  issued  by  a  German  officer,  one 
Von  Zowenstern,  calling  on  the  Turks  to  de- 
stroy the  enemy,  since  their  only  hope  of  salva- 
tion was  to  win  the  battle  or  die  in  the  at- 
tempt. On  some  bodies  were  other  orders, 
for  the  Mahometan  priests  to  encourage  the 
men  to  advance,  for  officers  to  shoot  those  sol- 
diers who  hung  back,  and  for  prisoners  to  be 
left  with  the  reserves,  not  taken  to  the  rear. 
In  this  early  part  of  the  campaign  there  were 
many  German  officers  in  the  Turkish  army. 
In  these  early  night  attacks  they  endeavoured 


Gallipoli  91 

to  confuse  our  men  by  shouting  orders  to  them 
in  English.  One,  on  the  day  of  the  landing, 
walked  up  to  one  of  the  trenches  of  the  29th 
Division  and  cried  out,  "  Surrender,  you  Eng- 
lish, we  ten  to  one."  "  He  was  thereupon  hit 
on  the  head  with  a  spade  by  a  man  who  was  im- 
proving his  trench  with  it." 

This  battle  never  ceased  for  five  days. 
The  artillery  was  never  silent.  Our  men  were 
shelled,  sniped  and  shrapnelled  every  day  and 
all  day  long,  and  at  night  the  Turks  attacked 
with  the  bayonet.  By  the  evening  of  the  5th 
May  the  29th  Division,  which  had  won  the 
end  of  the  Peninsula,  had  been  reduced  by  one- 
half  and  its  officers  by  two-thirds.  The  pro- 
portion of  officers  to  men  in  a  British  battalion 
is  as  one  to  thirty-seven,  but  in  the  list  of  killed 
the  proportion  was  as  one  to  eleven.  The  offi- 
cers of  that  wonderful  company  poured  out 
their  lives  like  water;  they  brought  their  weary 
men  forward  hour  after  hour  in  all  that  sleep- 
less ten  days,  and  at  the  end  led  them  on  once 
more  in  the  great  attack  of  the  6th-8th  of  May. 

This  attack  was  designed  to  push  the  Allied 


92  Gallipoli 

lines  further  forward  into  the  Peninsula,  so 
as  to  win  a  little  more  ground,  and  ease  the 
growing  congestion  on  the  beaches  near  Cape 
Helles.  The  main  Turkish  position  lay  on  and 
about  the  hump  of  Achi  Baba,  and  on  the  high 
ground  stretching  down  from  it.  It  was  hoped 
that  even  if  Achi  Baba  could  not  be  carried,  the 
ground  below  him,  including  the  village  of 
Krithia,  might  be  taken.  The  movement  was 
to  be  a  general  advance,  with  the  French  on 
the  right  attacking  the  high  ground  nearer  to 
the  Straits,  the  29th  Division  on  the  left,  be- 
tween the  French  and  the  sea,  attacking  the 
slowly  sloping  ground  which  leads  past  Krithia 
up  to  Achi  Baba.  Krithia  stands  high  upon  the 
slope,  among  orchards  and  gardens,  and  makes 
a  good  artillery  target,  but  the  slope  on  which 
it  stands,  being  much  broken,  covered  with 
dense  scrub  (some  of  it  thorny)  and  with 
clumps  of  trees,  is  excellent  for  defence.  The 
Turks  had  protected  that  square  mile  of  ground 
with  many  machine  guns  and  trenches  so  skil- 
fully concealed  that  they  could  not  be  seen 
either    from    close    in    front    or    from    aero- 


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Galli  poli  93 

planes.  The  French  line  of  attack  was  over 
ground  equally  difficult,  but  steeper,  and  there- 
fore giving  more  "  dead  ground,"  or  patches 
upon  which  no  direct  fire  can  be  turned  by  the 
defence.  The  line  of  battle  from  the  French 
right  to  the  English  left  stretched  right  across 
the  Peninsula  with  a  front  (owing  to  bends 
and  salients)  of  about  five  miles.  It  was  nearly 
everywhere  commanded  by  the  guns  of  Achi 
Baba,  and  in  certain  places  the  enemy  batteries 
on  the  Turk  left,  near  the  Straits,  could  enfilade 
it.  Our  men  were  weary  but  the  Turks  were 
expecting  strong  reinforcements;  the  attack 
could  not  be  delayed. 

Few  people  who  have  not  seen  modern  war 
can  understand  what  it  is  like.  They  look  at 
a  map,  which  is  a  small  flat  surface,  and  find 
it  difficult  to  believe  that  a  body  of  men  could 
have  had  difficulty  in  passing  from  one  point 
upon  it  to  another.  They  think  that  they  them- 
selves would  have  found  no  difficulty,  that  they 
would  not  have  been  weary  nor  thirsty,  the  dis- 
tance demanded  of  them  being  only  a  mile, 
possibly  a  mile  and  a  quarter,  and  the  reward 


94  Gallipoli 

a  very  great  one.  They  think  that  troops  who 
failed  to  pass  across  that  mile  must  have  been 
in  some  way  wanting,  and  that  had  they  been 
there,  either  in  command  or  in  the  attack,  the 
results  would  have  been  different. 

One  can  only  answer,  that  in  modern  war  it  is 
not  easy  to  carry  a  well-defended  site  by  direct 
attack.  In  modern  war,  you  may  not  know,  till 
fire  breaks  out  upon  you,  where  the  defence, 
which  you  have  to  attack,  is  hidden.  You  may 
not  know  (in  darkness,  in  a  strange  land)  more 
than  vaguely  which  is  your  "  front,"  and  you 
may  pass  by  your  enemy,  or  over  him,  or  under 
him  without  seeing  him.  You  may  not  see  your 
enemy  at  all.  You  may  fight  for  days  and 
never  see  an  enemy.  In  modern  war  troops  see 
no  enemy  till  he  attacks  them;  then,  in  most 
cases  if  they  are  well  entrenched  with  many 
guns  behind  them,  they  can  destroy  him. 

The  Allied  officers,  looking  through  their 
field  glasses  at  the  ground  to  be  attacked,  could 
see  only  rough,  sloping  ground,  much  gullied, 
much  overgrown,  with  a  few  clumps  of  trees,  a 
few  walls,  orchards  and  houses,  but  no  guns,  no 


Gallipoli  95 

trenches,  no  enemy.  Aeroplanes  scouting  over 
the  Turks  could  see  men  but  not  the  trenches 
nor  the  guns,  they  could  only  report  that  they 
suspected  them  to  be  in  such  a  place.  Some- 
times in  the  mornings  men  would  notice  that 
the  earth  was  turned  newly  on  some  bare  patch 
on  the  hill,  but  none  could  be  sure  that  this  dig- 
ging was  not  a  ruse  to  draw  fire.  The  trenches 
were  hidden  cunningly,  often  with  a  head-cover 
of  planks  so  strewn  with  earth  and  planted  with 
scrub  as  to  be  indistinguishable  from  the  ground 
about.  The  big  guns  were  coloured  cunningly, 
like  a  bird  or  snake  upon  the  ground.  From 
above  in  an  aeroplane  an  observer  could  not  pick 
them  out  so  as  to  be  certain,  if  they  were  not 
in  action  at  the  time.  Brave  men  scouting  for- 
ward at  night  to  reconnoitre  brought  back  some 
information,  but  not  more  than  enough  to  show 
that  the  Turks  were  there  in  force.  No  man  in 
the  Allied  Army  expected  less  than  a  desperate 
battle;  no  officer  in  the  world  could  have  made 
it  anything  but  that,  with  all  the  odds  against 
us.  Nothing  could  be  done  but  cover  the 
Turk  position  with  the  fire  of  every  gun  on 


g6  Gallipoli 

shore  or  in  the  ships  and  then  send  the  men  for- 
ward, to  creep  or  dash  as  far  as  they  could, 
and  then  dig  themselves  in. 

Let  the  reader  imagine  himself  to  be  facing 
three  miles  of  any  very  rough  broken  sloping 
ground  known  to  him,  ground  for  the  most  part 
gorse-thyme-and-scrub-covered,  being  poor  soil, 
but  in  some  places  beautiful  with  flowers  (es- 
pecially "  a  spiked  yellow  flower  with  a  whitish 
leaf")  and  on  others  green  from  cultivation. 
Let  him  say  to  himself  that  he  and  an  army  of 
his  friends  are  about  to  advance  up  the  slope 
towards  the  top,  and  that  as  they  will  be  advanc- 
ing in  a  line,  along  the  whole  length  of  the  three 
miles,  he  will  only  see  the  advance  of  those 
comparatively  near  to  him,  since  folds  or  dips 
in  the  ground  will  hide  the  others.  Let  him, 
before  he  advances,  look  earnestly  along  the 
line  of  the  hill,  as  it  shows  up  clear,  in  blazing 
sunlight  only  a  mile  from  him,  to  see  his  tactical 
objective,  one  little  clump  of  pines,  three  hun- 
dred yards  away,  across  what  seem  to  be  fields. 
Let  him  see  in  the  whole  length  of  the  hill  no 
single  human  being,  nothing  but  scrub,  earth,  a 


Gallipoli  97 

few  scattered  buildings,  of  the  Levantine  type 
(dirty  white  with  roofs  of  dirty  red)  and  some 
patches  of  dark  Scotch  pine,  growing  as  the 
pine  loves,  on  bleak  crests.  Let  him  imagine 
himself  to  be  more  weary  than  he  has  ever  been 
in  his  life  before,  and  dirtier  than  he  has  ever 
believed  it  possible  to  be,  and  parched  with 
thirst,  nervous,  wild-eyed  and  rather  lousy. 
Let  him  think  that  he  has  not  slept  for  more 
than  a  few  minutes  together  for  eleven  days 
and  nights,  and  that  in  all  his  waking  hours  he 
has  been  fighting  for  his  life,  often  hand  to 
hand  in  the  dark  with  a  fierce  enemy,  and  that 
after  each  fight  he  has  had  to  dig  himself  a 
hole  in  the  ground,  often  with  his  hands,  and 
then  walk  three  or  four  roadless  miles  to  bring 
up  heavy  boxes  under  fire.  Let  him  think,  too, 
that  in  all  those  eleven  days  he  has  never  for 
an  instant  been  out  of  the  thunder  of  cannon, 
that  waking  or  sleeping  their  devastating  crash 
has  been  blasting  the  air  across  within  a  mile 
or  two,  and  this  from  an  artillery  so  terrible 
that  each  discharge  beats  as  it  were  a  wedge 
of  shock  between  the  skull-bone  and  the  brain. 


98  GaUipoli 

Let  him  think  too  that  never,  for  an  instant,  in 
all  that  time,  has  he  been  free  or  even  partly 
free  from  the  peril  of  death  in  its  most  sudden 
and  savage  forms,  and  that  hourly  in  all  that 
time  he  has  seen  his  friends  blown  to  pieces  at 
his  side,  or  dismembered,  or  drowned,  or  driven 
mad,  or  stabbed,  or  sniped  by  some  unseen 
stalker,  or  bombed  in  the  dark  sap  with  a  hand- 
ful of  dynamite  in  a  beef-tin,  till  their  blood  is 
caked  upon  his  clothes  and  thick  upon  his  face, 
and  that  he  knows,  as  he  stares  at  the  hill,  that 
in  a  few  moments,  more  of  that  dwindling  band, 
already  too  few,  God  knows  how  many  too  few, 
for  the  task  to  be  done,  will  be  gone  the  same 
way,  and  that  he  himself  may  reckon  that  he 
has  done  with  life,  tasted  and  spoken  and  loved 
his  last,  and  that  in  a  few  minutes  more  may 
be  blasted  dead,  or  lying  bleeding  in  the  scrub, 
with  perhaps  his  face  gone  and  a  leg  and  an 
arm  broken,  unable  to  move  but  still  alive,  un- 
able to  drive  away  the  flies  or  screen  the  ever- 
dropping  rain,  in  a  place  where  none  will  find 
him,  or  be  able  to  help  him,  a  place  where  he 
will  die  and  rot  and  shrivel,  till  nothing  is  left 


Gallipoli  99 

of  him  but  a  few  rags  and  a  few  remnants  and 
a  little  identification-disc  flapping  on  his  bones 
in  the  wind.  Then  let  him  hear  the  intermit- 
tent crash  and  rattle  of  the  fire  augment  sud- 
denly and  awfully  in  a  roaring,  blasting  roll,  un- 
speakable and  unthinkable,  while  the  air  above, 
that  has  long  been  whining  and  whistling,  be- 
comes filled  with  the  scream  of  shells  passing 
like  great  cats  of  death  in  the  air;  let  him  see  the 
slope  of  the  hill  vanish  in  a  few  moments  into 
the  white,  yellow  and  black  smokes  of  great  ex- 
plosions shot  with  fire,  and  watch  the  lines  of 
white  puffs  marking  the  hill  in  streaks  where 
the  shrapnel  searches  a  suspected  trench;  and 
then,  in  the  height  of  the  tumult,  when  his  brain 
is  shaking  in  his  head,  let  him  pull  himself  to- 
gether with  his  friends,  and  clamber  up  out  of 
the  trench,  to  go  forward  against  an  invisible 
enemy,  safe  in  some  unseen  trench  expecting 
him. 

The  Twenty-ninth  Division  went  forward 
under  these  conditions  on  the  6th  of  May. 
They  dashed  on,  or  crawled,  for  a  few  yards  at 
a  time,  then  dropped  for  a  few  instants  before 


ioo  Gallipoli 

squirming  on  again.     In  such  an  advance  men 
do  not  see  the  battlefield.     They  see  the  world 
as  the  rabbit  sees  it,  crouching  on  the  ground, 
just  their  own  little  patch.     On  broken  ground 
like  that,  full  of  dips  and  rises,  men  may  be 
able  to  see  nothing  but  perhaps  the  ridge  of  a 
bank  ten  feet  ahead,  with  the  dust  flying  in 
spouts  all  along  it,  as  bullets  hit  it,  some  thou- 
sand a  minute,   and  looking  back  or  to  their 
flanks  they  may  see  no  one  but  perhaps  a  few 
men  of  their  own  platoon  lying  tense  but  expect- 
ant, ready  for  the  sign  to  advance  while  the 
bullets  pipe  over  them  in  a  never-ending  birdlike 
croon.     They  may  be  shut  off  by  some  all-im- 
portant foot  of  ground  from  seeing  how  they 
are  fronting,  from  all  knowledge  of  what  the 
next  platoon  is  doing  or  suffering.     It  may  be 
quite  certain  death  to  peep  over  that  foot  of 
ground  in  order  to  find  out,  and  while  they  wait 
for  a   few  instants  shells  may  burst  in  their 
midst  and  destroy  a  half  of  them.     Then  the 
rest,  nerving  themselves,  rush  up  the  ridge,  and 
fall  in  a  line  dead  under  machine-gun  fire.     The 
supports  come  up,  creeping  over  their  corpses, 


Gallipoli  101 

get  past  the  ridge,  into  scrub  which  some  shell 
has  set  on  fire.  Men  fall  wounded  in  the  fire, 
and  the  cartridges  in  their  bandoliers  explode 
and  slowly  kill  them.  The  survivors  crawl 
through  the  scrub,  half-choked,  and  come  out 
on  a  field  full  of  flowers  tangled  three  feet  high 
with  strong  barbed  wire.  They  wait  for  a 
while,  to  try  to  make  out  where  the  enemy  is. 
They  may  see  nothing  but  the  slope  of  the  field 
running  up  to  a  sky  line,  and  a  flash  of  distant 
sea  on  a  flank,  but  no  sign  of  any  enemy,  only 
the  crash  of  guns  and  the  pipe  and  croon  and 
spurt  of  bullets.  Gathering  themselves  to- 
gether their  brave  men  dash  out  to  cut  the  wire 
and  are  killed;  others  take  their  places  and  are 
killed;  others  step  out  with  too  great  a  pride 
even  to  stoop,  and  pull  up  the  supports  of  the 
wires  and  fling  them  down,  and  fall  dead  on 
top  of  them,  having  perhaps  cleared  a  couple 
of  yards.  Then  a  couple  of  machine  guns  open 
on  the  survivors  and  kill  them  all  in  thirty  sec- 
onds, with  the  concentrated  fire  of  a  battalion. 
The  supports  come  up,  and  hear  about  the 
wire  from  some  wounded  man  who  has  crawled 


102  Gallipoli 

back  through  the  scrub.  They  send  back  word, 
"  Held  up  by  wire,"  and  in  time  the  message 
comes  to  the  telephone  which  has  just  been 
blown  to  pieces  by  a  shell.  Presently  when  the 
telephone  is  repaired,  the  message  reaches  the 
gunners,  who  fire  high  explosive  shells  on  to 
the  wire,  and  on  to  the  slopes  where  the  machine 
guns  may  be  hidden.  Then  the  supports  go  on 
over  the  flowers  and  are  met  midway  by  a  con- 
centrated fire  of  shells,  shrapnel,  machine  guns 
and  rifles.  Those  who  are  not  killed  lie  down 
among  the  flowers  and  begin  to  scrape  little 
heaps  of  earth  with  their  hands  to  give  protec- 
tion to  their  heads.  In  the  light  sandy  marl 
this  does  not  take  long,  though  many  are  blown 
to  pieces  or  hit  in  the  back  as  they  scrape.  As 
before,  they  cannot  see  how  the  rest  of  the  at- 
tack is  faring,  nor  even  where  the  other  pla- 
toons of  the  battalion  are;  they  lie  scraping  in 
the  roots  of  daffodils  and  lilies,  while  bullets 
sing  and  shriek  a  foot  or  two  over  their  heads. 
A  man  peering  from  his  place  in  the  flowers  may 
make  out  that  the  man  next  to  him,  some  three 
yards  away,  is  dead,  and  that  the  man  beyond  is 


Galli  poll  103 

praying,  the  man  beyond  him  cursing,  and  the 
man  beyond  him  out  of  his  mind  from  nerves 
or  thirst. 

Long  hours  pass,  but  the  air  above  them 
never  ceases  to  cry  like  a  live  thing  with  bullets 
flying.  Men  are  killed  or  maimed,  and  the 
wounded  cry  for  water.  Men  get  up  to  give 
them  water  and  are  killed.  Shells  fall  at  regu- 
lar intervals  along  the  field.  The  waiting  men 
count  the  seconds  between  the  shells  to  check 
the  precision  of  the  battery's  fire.  Some  of 
the  bursts  fling  the  blossoms  and  bulbs  of 
flowers  into  the  bodies  of  men,  where  they  are 
found  long  afterwards  by  the  X-rays.  Bursts 
and  roars  of  fire  on  either  flank  tell  of  some 
intense  moment  in  other  parts  of  the  line. 
Every  feeling  of  terror  and  mental  anguish  and 
anxiety  goes  through  the  mind  of  each  man 
there,  and  is  put  down  by  resolve. 

The  supports  come  up,  they  rise  with  a  cheer, 
and  get  out  of  the  accursed  flowers,  into  a  gulley 
where  some  men  of  their  regiment  are  already 
lying  dead.  There  is  a  little  wood  to  their 
front;  they  make  for  that,  and  suddenly  come 


104  Galli  poli 

upon  a  deep  and  narrow  Turk  trench  full  of 
men.  This  is  their  first  sight  of  the  enemy. 
They  leap  down  into  the  trench  and  fight  hand 
to  hand,  kill  and  are  killed,  in  the  long  grave 
already  dug.  They  take  the  trench,  but  open- 
ing from  the  trench  are  saps,  which  the  Turks 
still  hold.  Men  are  shot  dead  at  these  saps 
by  Turk  sharpshooters  cunningly  screened 
within  them.  Bullets  fall  in  particular  places 
in  the  trench  from  snipers  hidden  in  the  trees 
of  the  wood.  The  men  send  back  for  bombs, 
others  try  to  find  out  where  the  rest  of  the  bat- 
talion lies,  or  send  word  that  from  the  noise  of 
the  fire  there  must  be  a  battery  of  machine  guns 
beyond  the  wood,  if  the  guns  would  shell  it. 

Presently,  before  the  bombs  come,  bombs  be- 
gin to  drop  among  them  from  the  Turks. 
Creeping  up,  the  men  catch  them  in  their  hands 
before  they  explode  and  fling  them  back  so 
that  they  burst  among  the  Turks.  Some  have 
their  hands  blown  off,  other  their  heads,  in 
doing  this,  but  the  bloody  game  of  catch  goes 
on  till  no  Turks  are  left  in  the  sap,  only  a  few 
wounded  groaning  men  who   slowly  bleed  to 


Gallipoli  105 

death  there.  After  long  hours,  the  supports 
come  up  and  a  storm  of  high  explosives  searches 
the  little  wood,  and  then  with  a  cheer  the  rem- 
nant goes  forward  out  of  the  trench  into  the 
darkness  of  the  pines.  Fire  opens  on  them 
from  snipers  in  the  trees  and  from  machine 
guns  everywhere;  they  drop  and  die,  and  the 
survivors  see  no  enemy,  only  their  friends  fall- 
ing and  a  place  where  no  living  thing  can  pass. 
Men  find  themselves  suddenly  alone,  with  all 
their  friends  dead,  and  no  enemy  in  sight,  but 
the  rush  of  bullets  filling  the  air.  They  go  back 
to  the  trench,  not  afraid,  but  in  a  kind  of  maze, 
and  as  they  take  stock  and  count  their  strength 
there  comes  the  roar  of  the  Turkish  war  cry, 
the  drum-like  proclamation  of  the  faith,  and 
the  Turks  come  at  them  with  the  bayonet. 
Then  that  lonely  remnant  of  a  platoon  stands 
to  it  with  rapid  fire,  and  the  machine  gun  rattles 
like  a  motor  bicycle,  and  some  ribald  or  silly 
song  goes  up,  and  the  Turks  fail  to  get  home, 
but  die  or  waver  and  retreat  and  are  themselves 
charged  as  they  turn.  It  is  evening  now;  the 
day  has  passed  in  long  hours  of  deep  experience, 


106  Gallipoli 

and  the  men  have  made  two  hundred  yards. 
They  send  back  for  supports  and  orders,  link 
up,  if  they  are  lucky,  with  some  other  part  of 
their  battalion,  whose  adventures,  fifty  yards 
away,  have  been  as  intense,  but  wholly  different, 
and  prepare  the  Turk  trench  for  the  night. 
Presently  word  reaches  them  from  some  far- 
away H.  Q.  (some  dug-out  five  hundred  yards 
back,  in  what  seems,  by  comparison,  like  peace- 
ful England)  that  there  are  no  supports,  and 
that  the  orders  are  to  hold  the  line  at  all  costs 
and  prepare  for  a  fresh  advance  on  the  morrow. 
Darkness  falls,  and  ammunition  and  water 
come  up,  and  the  stretcher-bearers  hunt  for  the 
wounded  by  the  groans,  while  the  Turks  search 
the  entire  field  with  shell  to  kill  the  supports 
which  are  not  there.  Some  of  the  men  in  the 
trench  creep  out  to  their  front,  and  are  killed 
there  as  they  fix  a  wire  entanglement.  The 
survivors  make  ready  for  the  Turk  attack,  cer- 
tain soon  to  come.  There  is  no  thought  of 
sleep;  it  is  too  cold  for  sleep;  the  men  shiver 
as  they  stare  into  the  night;  they  take  the  coats 
of  the  dead,  and  try  to  get  a  little  warmth. 


Gallipoli  107 

There  is  no  moon  and  the  rain  begins.  The 
marl  at  the  bottom  of  the  trench  is  soon  a  sticky 
mud,  and  the  one  dry  patch  is  continually  being 
sniped.  A  few  exhausted  ones  fall  not  into 
sleep  but  into  nervous  dreams,  full  of  twitches 
and  cries,  like  dogs'  nightmares,  and  away  at 
sea  some  ship  opens  with  her  great  guns  at  an 
unseen  target  up  the  hill.  The  terrific  crashes 
shake  the  air;  some  one  sees  a  movement  in  the 
grass  and  fires;  others  start  up  and  fire.  The 
whole  irregular  line  starts  up  and  fires,  the  ma- 
chine guns  rattle,  the  officers  curse,  and  the  guns 
behind,  expecting  an  attack,  send  shells  into 
the  woods.  Then  slowly  the  fire  drops  and 
dies,  and  stray  Turks,  creeping  up,  fling  bombs 
into  the  trench. 

This  kind  of  fighting,  between  isolated  bodies 
of  men  advancing  in  a  great  concerted  tactical 
movement  stretching  right  across  the  Peninsula, 
went  on  throughout  the  6th,  the  7th  and  the  8th 
of  May,  and  ended  on  the  evening  of  the  8th 
in  a  terrific  onslaught  of  the  whole  line,  covered 
by  a  great  artillery.     The  final  stage  of  the 


108  Gallipoli 

battle  was  a  sight  of  stirring  and  awful  beauty. 
The  Allied  line  went  forward  steadily  behind 
the  moving  barrier  of  the  explosions  of  their 
shells.  Every  gun  on  both  sides  opened  and 
maintained  a  fire  dreadful  to  hear  and  see. 
Our  men  were  fighting  for  a  little  patch  of 
ground  vital  not  so  much  to  the  success  of  the 
undertaking,  the  clearing  of  the  Narrows,  as 
to  their  existence  on  the  Peninsula.  In  such  a 
battle,  each  platoon,  each  section,  each  private 
soldier  influences  the  result,  and  "  pays  as  cur- 
rent coin  in  that  red  purchase  "  as  the  brigadier. 
The  working  parties  on  the  beaches  left  their 
work  (it  is  said)  to  watch  and  cheer  that  last 
advance.  It  was  a  day  of  the  unmatchable 
clear  iEgean  spring;  Samothrace  and  Eubcea 
were  stretched  out  in  the  sunset  like  giants 
watching  the  chess,  waiting,  it  seemed,  almost 
like  human  things,  as  they  had  waited  for  the 
fall  of  Troy  and  the  bale-fires  of  Agamemnon. 
Those  watchers  saw  the  dotted  order  of  our 
advance  stretching  across  the  Peninsula,  moving 
slowly  forward,  and  halting  and  withering 
away,   among  fields  of  flowers  of  spring  and 


Gallipoli  109 

the  young  corn  that  would  never  come  to  har- 
vest. They  saw  the  hump  of  Achi  Baba  flicker 
and  burn  and  roll  up  to  heaven  in  a  swathe  of 
blackness,  and  multitudinous  brightness  chang- 
ing the  face  of  the  earth,  and  the  dots  of  our 
line  still  coming,  still  moving  forward,  and 
halting  and  withering  away,  but  still  moving  up 
among  the  flashes  and  the  darkness,  more  men, 
and  yet  more  men,  from  the  fields  of  sacred 
France,  from  the  darkness  of  Senegal,  from 
sheep-runs  at  the  ends  of  the  earth,  from  blue- 
gum-forests,  and  sunny  islands,  places  of  horses 
and  good  fellows,  from  Irish  pastures  and 
glens,  and  from  many  a  Scotch  and  English  city 
and  village  and  quiet  farm;  they  went  on  and 
they  went  on,  up  ridges  blazing  with  explosion 
into  the  darkness  of  death.  Sometimes,  as  the 
light  failed,  and  peak  after  peak  that  had  been 
burning  against  the  sky,  grew  rigid  as  the  col- 
our faded,  the  darkness  of  the  great  blasts  hid 
sections  of  the  line,  but  when  the  darkness 
cleared  they  were  still  there,  line  after  line  of 
dots,  still  more,  still  moving  forward  and  halt- 
ing and  withering  away,   and  others  coming, 


no  Gallipoli 

and  halting  and  withering  away,  and  others  fol- 
lowing, as  though  those  lines  were  not  flesh  and 
blood  and  breaking  nerve  but  some  tide  of  the 
sea  coming  in  waves  that  fell  yet  advanced, 
that  broke  a  little  further,  and  gained  some 
yard  in  breaking,  and  were  then  followed,  and 
slowly  grew,  that  halted  and  seemed  to  wither, 
and  then  gathered  and  went  on,  till  night  cov- 
ered those  moving  dots,  and  the  great  slope  was 
nothing  but  a  blackness  spangled  with  the  flashes 
of  awful  fire. 

What  can  be  said  of  that  advance?  The 
French  were  on  the  right,  the  Twenty-ninth 
Division  on  the  left,  some  Australians  and  New 
Zealanders  (brought  down  from  Anzac)  in 
support.  It  was  their  thirteenth  day  of  con- 
tinual battle,  and  who  will  ever  write  the  story 
of  even  one  half-hour  of  that  thirteenth  day? 
Who  will  ever  know  one  hundredth  part  of  the 
deeds  of  heroism  done  in  them,  by  platoons 
and  sections  and  private  soldiers,  who  offered 
their  lives  without  a  thought  to  help  some  other 
part  of  the  line,  who  went  out  to  cut  wire,  or 
brought  up  water  and  ammunition,  or  cheered 


Gallipoli  in 

on  some  bleeding  remnant  of  a  regiment,  halt- 
ing on  that  hill  of  death,  and  kept  their  faces 
to  the  shrapnel  and  the  never-ceasing  pelt  of 
bullets,  as  long  as  they  had  strength  to  go  and 
light  to  see?  They  brought  the  line  forward 
from  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  six  hundred  yards 
further  into  the  Peninsula;  they  dug  in  after 
dark  on  the  line  they  had  won,  and  for  the  next 
thirty-six  hours  they  stood  to  arms  to  beat  back 
the  charges  of  the  Turks  who  felt  themselves 
threatened  at  the  heart. 

Our  army  had  won  their  hold  upon  the  Pen- 
insula. On  the  body  of  a  dead  Turk  officer 
was  a  letter  written  the  night  before  to  his  wife, 
a  tender  letter,  filled  mostly  with  personal  mat- 
ters. In  it  was  the  phrase,  "  These  British  are 
the  finest  fighters  in  the  world.  We  have 
chosen  the  wrong  friends." 


IV 


So  great  is  the  heat  that  the  dust  rises. 

The  Song  of  Roland. 


During  the  next  three  weeks,  the  Allied  troops 
made  small  advances  in  parts  of  the  lines  held 
by  them  at  Anzac  and  Cape  Helles.  Fight- 
ing was  continuous  in  both  zones,  there  was  al- 
ways much  (and  sometimes  intense)  artillery 
fire.  The  Turks  frequently  attacked  in  force, 
sometimes  in  very  great  force,  but  were  re- 
pulsed. Our  efforts  were  usually  concentrated 
on  some  redoubt,  stronghold,  or  salient,  in  the 
nearer  Turkish  lines,  the  fire  from  which  galled 
our  trenches,  or  threatened  any  possible  ad- 
vance. These  posts  were  either  heavily  bom- 
barded and  then  rushed  under  the  cover  of  a 
feu  de  barrage,  or  carried  by  surprise  attack. 
Great  skill  and  much  dashing  courage  were 
shown  in  these  assaults.  The  emplacements 
of  machine  guns  were  seized  and  the  guns  de- 
stroyed, dangerous  trenches  or  parts  of  trenches 
were  carried  and  filled  in,  and  many  roosts  or 
hiding  places  of  snipers  were  made  untenable. 

115 


1 1 6  Gallipoli 

These  operations  were  on  a  small  scale,  and 
were  designed  to  improve  the  position  then  held 
by  us,  rather  than  to  carry  the  whole  line  further 
up  the  Peninsula.  Sometimes  they  failed,  but 
by  far  the  greater  number  succeeded,  so  that 
by  these  methods,  eked  out  by  ruses,  mines, 
clever  invention  and  the  most  dare-devil  brav- 
ery, parts  of  our  lines  were  advanced  by  more 
than  a  hundred  yards. 

On  the  4th  of  June,  a  second  great  attack 
was  made  by  the  Allied  troopo  near  Cape 
Helles.  Like  the  attack  of  the  6th-8th  May, 
it  was  an  advance  of  the  whole  line,  from  the 
Straits  to  the  sea,  against  the  enemy's  front 
line  trenches.  As  before,  the  French  were  on 
the  right  and  the  29th  Division  on  the  left,  but 
between  them,  in  this  advance,  were  the  R.  N. 
Division  and  the  newly  arrived  42nd  Division. 
Our  men  advanced  after  a  prolonged  and  terri- 
ble bombardment,  which  so  broke  down  the 
Turk  defence  that  the  works  were  carried  all 
along  the  line,  except  in  one  place,  on  the  left 
of  the  French  sector  and  in  one  other  place, 
on  our  own  left,  near  the  sea.     Our  advance, 


<n 

Li 


a 

N 


Gallipoli  117 

as  before,  varied  in  depth  from  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  to  six  hundred  yards;  all  of  it  carried 
by  a  rush,  in  a  short  time,  owing  to  the  violence 
of  the  artillery  preparation,  though  with  heavy 
losses  from  shrapnel  and  machine-gun  fire.  In 
this  attack,  the  42nd  or  East  Lancashire  Divi- 
sion received  its  baptism  of  fire.  Even  those 
who  had  seen  the  men  of  the  29th  Division 
in  the  battles  for  the  landing  admitted  that 
"  nothing  could  have  been  finer  "  than  the  ex- 
treme gallantry  of  these  newly  landed  men. 
The  Manchester  Brigade  and  two  companies 
of  the  5th  Lancashire  Fusiliers  advanced  with 
the  most  glorious  and  dashing  courage,  routed 
the  Turks,  carried  both  their  lines  of  trenches; 
and  one  battalion,  the  6th,  very  nearly  carried 
the  village  of  Krithia;  there  was,  in  fact,  no 
entrenched  line  between  them  and  the  top  of 
Achi  Baba. 

But  in  this  campaign  we  were  to  taste,  and 
be  upon  the  brink  of  victory  in  every  battle,  yet 
have  the  prize  dashed  from  us,  by  some  fail- 
ure elsewhere,  each  time.  So,  in  this  first  rush, 
when,  for  the  first  time,  our  men  felt  that  they, 


1 1 8  Gallipoli 

not  the  Turks,  were  the  real  attackers,  the  vic- 
tory was  not  to  remain  with  us.  We  had  no 
high  explosive  shell  and  not  enough  shrapnel 
shell  to  deny  to  the  Turks  the  use  of  their 
superior  numbers  and  to  hold  them  in  a  beaten 
state.  They  rallied  and  made  strong  counter- 
attacks especially  upon  a  redoubt  or  earthwork- 
fortress  called  the  "  Haricot,"  on  the  left  of  the 
French  sector,  which  the  French  had  stormed 
an  hour  before  and  garrisoned  with  Senegalese 
troops.  The  Turks  heavily  shelled  this  work 
and  then  rushed  it;  the  Senegalese  could  not 
hold  it;  the  French  could  not  support  it;  and 
the  Turks  won  it.  Unfortunately,  the  Haricot 
enfiladed  the  lines  we  had  won.  In  a  little 
while  the  Turks  developed  from  it  a  deadly  en- 
filade fire  upon  the  R.  N.  Division  which  had 
won  the  Turk  trenches  to  the  west  of  it.  The 
R.  N.  Division  was  forced  to  fall  back  and  in 
doing  so  uncovered  the  right  of  the  Brigade  of 
Manchesters  beyond  it  to  the  westward.  The 
Manchesters  were  forced  to  give  ground,  the 
French  were  unable  to  make  a  new  attack  upon 
the  Haricot,  so  that  by  nightfall  our  position 


Gal  lip  oli  119 

was  less  good  than  it  had  been  at  half-past 
twelve. 

But  for  the  fall  of  the  Haricot  the  day  would 
have  been  a  notable  victory  for  ourselves. 
Still,  over  three  miles  of  the  Allied  front,  our 
lines  had  been  pushed  forward  from  200  to 
400  yards.  This,  in  modern  war  is  a  big  ad- 
vance, but  it  brings  upon  the  conquerors  a  very 
severe  labor  of  digging.  The  trenches  won 
from  the  defence  have  to  be  converted  to  the 
uses  of  the  attack  and  linked  up,  by  saps  and 
communication-trenches,  with  the  works  from 
which  the  attack  advanced.  All  this  labour 
had  to  be  done  by  our  men  in  the  midst  of  bit- 
ter fighting,  for  the  Turks  fought  hard  to  win 
back  these  trenches  in  many  bloody  counter  at- 
tacks, and  (as  always  happened,  after  each  ad- 
vance) outlying  works  and  trenches,  from 
which  fire  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
newly  won  ground,  had  to  be  carried,  filled  in, 
or  blown  up  before  the  new  line  was  secure. 

A  little  after  dawn  on  the  21st  June  the 
French  stormed  and  won  the  Haricot  redoubt, 
and  advanced  the  right  of  the  Allied  position 


120  Gallipoli 

by  600  yards;  the  Turkish  counter  attacks  were 
bloodily  defeated. 

In  the  forenoon  of  the  28th  June,  the  English 
divisions  advanced  the  left  of  the  Allied  posi- 
tion by  a  full  1,000  yards.  This  attack,  which 
was  one  of  the  most  successful  of  the  cam- 
paign, was  the  first  of  which  it  could  be  said 
that  it  was  a  victory.  Of  course  our  presence 
upon  the  Peninsula  was  in  itself  a  victory,  but 
in  this  battle  we  were  not  trying  to  land  nor 
to  secure  ourselves,  but  (for  the  first  time)  to 
force  a  decision.  Three  of  our  divisions  chal- 
lenged the  greater  part  of  the  Turk  army  and 
beat  it.  And  here,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
operations,  we  felt,  what  all  our  soldiers  had 
expected,  that  want  of  fresh  men  in  reserve  to 
make  a  success  decisive,  which  afterwards  lost 
us  the  campaign. 

Our  enemies  have  often  said,  that  the  Eng- 
lish cannot  plan  nor  execute  an  attack.  In  this 
battle  of  June  28th,  the  attack  was  a  perfect 
piece  of  planning  and  execution.  Everything 
was  exactly  timed,  everything  worked  smoothly. 
Ten  thousand  soldiers,  not  one  of  whom  had 


Gal  lip  oli  121 

had  more  than  six  months'  training,  advanced 
uphill  after  an  artillery  preparation  and  won 
two  lines  of  elaborately  fortified  trenches,  by 
the  bayonet  alone.  Then,  while  these  men  con- 
solidated and  made  good  the  ground  which  they 
had  won,  the  artillery  lengthened  their  fuses 
and  bombarded  the  ground  beyond  them. 
When  the  artillery  ceased,  ten  thousand  fresh 
soldiers  climbed  out  of  the  English  lines,  ran 
forward,  leaped  across  the  two  lines  of  Turk 
trench  already  taken  and  took  three  more  lines 
of  trench,  each  line  a  fortress  in  itself.  Be- 
sides advancing  our  position  a  thousand  yards, 
this  attack  forced  back  the  right  of  the  Turks 
from  the  sea,  and  won  a  strong  position  be- 
tween the  sea  and  Krithia,  almost  turning  Achi 
Baba.  But  much  more  than  this  was  achieved. 
The  great  triumph  of  the  day  was  the  certainty 
then  acquired  that  the  Turks  were  beaten,  that 
they  were  no  longer  the  fierce  and  ardent  fight- 
ers who  had  rushed  V  beach  in  the  dark,  but 
a  shaken  company  who  had  caught  the  habit  of 
defeat  and  might  break  at  any  moment.  They 
were  beaten;  we  had  beaten  them  at  every  point 


122  Gallipoli 

and  they  knew  that  they  were  beaten.  Every 
man  in  the  French  and  British  lines  knew  that 
the  Turks  were  at  the  breaking  point.  We 
had  only  to  strike  while  the  iron  was  hot  to 
end  them. 

As  happened  afterwards,  after  the  battle  of 
August,  we  could  not  strike  while  the  iron  was 
hot;  we  had  not  the  men  nor  the  munitions. 
Had  the  fifty  thousand  men  who  came  there  in 
July  and  August  but  been  there  in  June,  our  men 
could  have  kept  on  striking.  But  they  were 
not  there  in  June,  and  our  victory  of  the  28th 
could  not  be  followed  up.  More  than  a  month 
passed  before  it  could  be  followed  up.  Dur- 
ing that  month  the  Turks  dug  themselves  new 
fortresses,  brought  up  new  guns,  made  new 
stores  of  ammunition,  and  remade  their  army. 
Their  beaten  troops  were  withdrawn  and  re- 
placed by  the  very  pick  and  flower  of  the  Turk- 
ish Empire.  When  we  attacked  again,  we 
found  a  very  different  enemy;  the  iron  was  cold, 
we  had  to  begin  again  from  the  beginning. 

Thirty-six  hours  after  our  June  success,  at 
midnight   in  the   night  of  June   29-30^,   the 


Galli  poll  123 

Turks  made  a  counter  attack,  not  at  Cape 
Helles,  where  their  men  were  shaken,  but  at 
Anzac,  where  perhaps  they  felt  our  menace 
more  acutely.  A  large  army  of  Turks,  about 
30,000  strong,  ordered  by  Enver  Pasha  "  to 
drive  the  foreigners  into  the  sea  or  never  to 
look  upon  his  face  again,"  attacked  the  Anzac 
position  under  cover  of  the  fire  of  a  great  artil- 
lery. They  were  utterly  defeated  with  the  loss 
of  about  a  quarter  of  their  strength,  some 
7-8,000  killed  and  wounded. 

All  this  fighting  proved  clearly  that  the 
Turks,  with  all  their  power  of  fresh  men,  their 
closeness  to  their  reserves,  and  their  superior 
positions,  could  not  beat  us  from  what  we  had 
secured,  nor  keep  us  from  securing  more.  Our 
advance  into  the  Peninsula,  though  slow  and 
paid  for  with  much  life,  was  sure  and  becom- 
ing less  slow.  What  we  had  won  we  had 
fought  hard  for  and  never  ceased  to  fight  hard 
for,  but  we  had  won  it  and  could  hold  it,  and 
with  increasing  speed  add  to  it,  and  the  Turks 
knew  this  as  well  as  we  did.  But  early  in  May 
something    happened   which    had    a    profound 


124  Galiipoli 

result  upon  the  course  of  the  operations.  It 
is  necessary  to  write  of  it  at  length,  if  only  to 
show  the  reader  that  this  Dardanelles  Cam- 
paign was  not  a  war  in  itself,  but  a  part  of  a 
war  involving  most  of  Europe  and  half  of 
Asia,  and  that,  that  being  so,  it  was  affected 
by  events  in  other  parts  of  the  war,  as  deeply 
as  it  affected  those  parts  in  turn  by  its  own 
events. 

No  one,  of  the  many  who  spoke  to  me  about 
the  campaign,  knew  or  understood  that  the 
campaign,  as  planned,  was  not  to  be,  solely,  a 
French  and  English  venture,  but  (in  its  later 
stages)  a  double  attack  upon  the  Turkish 
power,  by  ourselves,  on  the  Peninsula  and  the 
Hellespont,  and  by  the  Russians,  on  the  shores 
of  the  Black  Sea.  The  double  attack,  threaten- 
ing Turkey  at  the  heart,  was  designed  to  force 
the  Turks  to  divide  their  strength,  and,  by  caus- 
ing uneasiness  among  the  citizens,  to  keep  in 
and  about  Constantinople  a  large  army  which 
might  otherwise  wreck  our  Mesopotamian  ex- 
pedition, threaten  India  and  Egypt  and  prevent 
the    Grand    Duke    Nicholas    from    advancing 


Gallipoli  125 

from  the  Caucasus  on  Erzerum.  But  as  the 
Polish  campaign  developed  adversely  to  Russia, 
it  became  clear  that  it  would  be  impossible  for 
her  to  give  the  assistance  she  had  hoped. 

Early  in  May,  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  learned, 
that  his  advance,  instead  of  being  a  part  of  a 
concerted  scheme,  was  to  be  the  only  attack 
upon  the  Turks  in  that  quarter,  and  that  he 
would  have  to  withstand  the  greater  part  of  the 
Turkish  army.  This  did  not  mean  that  the 
Turks  could  mass  an  overwhelming  strength 
against  any  part  of  his  positions,  since  in  the 
narrow  Peninsula  there  is  not  room  for  great 
numbers  to  manoeuvre;  but  it  meant  that  the 
Turks  would  have  always  within  easy  distance 
great  reserves  of  fresh  men  to  take  the  place 
of  those  exhausted,  and  that  without  a  corre- 
spondingly great  reserve  we  had  little  chance  of 
decisive  success. 

This  change  in  the  strategical  scheme  was 
made  after  we  were  committed  to  the  venture: 
it  made  a  profound  difference  to  our  position. 
Unfortunately  we  were  so  deeply  engaged  in 
other  theatres  that  it  was  impossible  to  change 


126  Gal  lip  oli 

our  plans  as  swiftly  and  as  profoundly  as  our 
chances.  The  great  reserve  could  not  be  sent 
when  it  became  necessary,  early  in  May,  nor 
for  more  than  two  months.  Until  it  came,  it 
happened,  time  after  time,  that  even  when  we 
fought  and  beat  back  the  Turks  they  could  be 
reinforced  before  we  could.  All  through  the 
campaign  we  fought  them  and  beat  them  back, 
but  always,  on  the  day  after  the  battle,  they 
had  a  division  of  fresh  men  to  put  in  to  the 
defence,  while  we,  who  had  suffered  more, 
being  the  attackers,  had  but  a  handful  with 
which  to  follow  up  the  success. 

People  have  said,  "  But  you  could  have  kept 
fresh  divisions  in  reserve  as  easily  as  the  Turks. 
Why  did  you  not  send  more  men,  so  as  to  have 
them  ready  to  follow  up  a  success?  "  I  could 
never  answer  this  question.  It  is  the  vital 
question.  The  cry  for  "  fifty  thousand  more 
men  and  plenty  of  high  explosive  "  went  up 
daily  from  every  trench  in  Gallipoli,  and  we 
lost  the  campaign  through  not  sending  them  in 
time.  On  the  spot  of  course  our  generals  knew 
that  war  (like  life)  consists  of  a  struggle  with 


Gallipoli  127 

disadvantages,  and  their  struggle  with  these 
was  a  memorable  one.  Only,  when  all  was 
done,  their  situation  remained  that  of  the  Frank 
rearguard  in  the  Song  of  Roland.  In  that 
poem  the  Franks  could  and  did  beat  the  Sara- 
cens, but  the  Saracens  brought  up  another  army 
before  the  Franks  were  reinforced.  The 
Franks  could  and  did  beat  that  army,  too,  but 
the  Saracens  brought  up  another  army  before 
the  Franks  were  reinforced.  The  Franks 
could  and  did  beat  that  army,  too,  but  then  they 
were  spent  and  Roland  had  to  sound  his  horn 
and  Charlemagne  would  not  come  to  the  sum- 
mons of  the  horn,  and  the  heroes  were  aban- 
doned in  the  dolorous  pass. 

Summer  came  upon  Gallipoli  with  a  blinding 
heat  only  comparable  to  New  York  in  July. 
The  flowers  which  had  been  so  gay  with  beauty 
in  the  Helles  fields  in  April  soon  wilted  to 
stalks.  The  great  slope  of  Cape  Helles  took 
on  a  savage  and  African  look  of  desolation. 
The  air  quivered  over  the  cracking  land.  In 
the  blueness  of  the  heat  haze  the  graceful  ter- 


128  Gallipoli 

rible  hills  looked  even  more  gentle  and  beautiful 
than  before;  and  one  who  was  there  said  that 
"  there  were  little  birds  that  droned,  rather 
like  the  English  yellow-hammers."  With  the 
heat,  which  was  a  new  experience  to  all  the 
young  English  soldiers  there,  came  a  plague  of 
flies  beyond  all  record  and  belief.  Men  ate 
and  drank  flies,  the  filthy  insects  were  every- 
where. The  ground  in  places  was  so  dark  with 
them,  that  one  could  not  be  sure  whether  the 
patches  were  ground  or  flies.  Our  camps  and 
trenches  were  kept  clean;  they  were  well 
scavenged  daily;  but  only  a  few  yards  away 
were  the  Turk  trenches,  which  were  invariably 
filthy:  there  the  flies  bred  undisturbed,  perhaps 
encouraged.  There  is  a  fine  modern  poem 
which  speaks  of  the  Indian  sun  in  summer  as 
"  the  blazing  death-star."  Men  in  Gallipoli 
in  the  summer  of  19 15  learned  to  curse  the  sun 
as  an  enemy  more  cruel  than  the  Turk.  With 
the  sun  and  the  plague  of  flies  came  the  torment 
of  thirst,  one  of  the  greatest  torments  which 
life  has  the  power  to  inflict. 


Galli  poli  129 

At  Cape  Helles,  in  the  summer,  there  was 
a  shortage  but  no  great  scarcity  of  water,  for 
the  Turk  wells  supplied  more  than  half  the 
army  and  less  than  half  the  water  needed  had 
to  be  brought  from  abroad.  At  Anzac  how- 
ever there  was  always  a  scarcity,  for  even  in 
the  spring  not  more  than  a  third  of  the  water 
needed  could  be  drawn  from  wells.  At  first, 
water  could  be  found  by  digging  shallow  pans 
in  the  beach,  but  this  method  failed  when  the 
heats  began.  Two-thirds  (or  more)  of  the 
water  needed  at  Anzac  had  always  to  be 
brought  from  abroad,  and  to  bring  this  two- 
thirds  regularly  and  to  land  it  and  store  it  under 
shell  fire  was  a  difficult  task.  "  When  opera- 
tions were  on,"  as  in  the  August  battle,  the 
difficulty  of  distribution  was  added  to  the  other 
difficulties,  and  then  indeed  want  of  water 
brought  our  troops  to  death's  door.  At  Anzac 
11  when  operations  were  on  '  even  in  the  in- 
tensest  heat  the  average  ration  of  water  for  all 
purposes  was,  perhaps,  at  most,  a  pint  and  a 
half,  sometimes  only  a  pint.     And  though  this 


130  Gallipoli 

extremity  was  as  a  rule  only  reached  "  when 
operations  were  on,"  when  there  was  heavy 
fighting,  it  was  then  that  the  need  was  greatest. 

In  peace,  in  comfortable  homes,  in  cool 
weather,  civilised  people  need  or  consume  a 
little  less  than  three  pints  of  liquid  in  each  day. 
In  hot  weather  and  when  doing  severe  bodily 
labour  they  need  more;  perhaps  half  a  gallon 
in  the  day.  Thirst,  which  most  of  us  know 
solely  as  a  pleasant  zest  to  drinking,  soon  be- 
comes a  hardship,  then,  in  an  hour,  an  obses- 
sion, and  by  high  noon  a  madness,  to  those 
who  toil  in  the  sun  with  nothing  to  drink. 
Possibly  to  most  of  the  many  thousands  who 
were  in  the  Peninsula  last  summer,  the  real 
enemies  were  not  the  Turks,  but  the  sun  in 
Heaven,  shaking  "  the  pestilence  of  his  light," 
and  thirst  that  withered  the  heart  and  cracked 
the  tongue. 

Some  have  said  to  me,  "  Yes,  but  the  Turks 
must  have  suffered,  too,  just  as  much,  in  that 
waterless  ground."  It  is  not  so.  The  Turks 
at  Cape  Helles  held  the  wells  at  Krithia;  in- 
land from  Anzac  they  held  the  wells  near  Lone- 


Galli  poli  131 

some  Pine  and  Koja  Dere.  They  had  other 
wells  at  Maidos,  and  Gallipoli.  They  had 
always  more  water  than  we,  and  (what  is 
more)  the  certainty  of  it.  Most  of  them  came 
from  lands  with  little  water  and  great  heat, 
ten  (or  more)  degrees  further  to  the  south 
than  any  part  of  England.  Heat  and  thirst 
were  old  enemies  to  them,  they  were  tempered 
to  them.  Our  men  had  to  serve  an  apprentice- 
ship to  them,  and  pay  for  what  they  learned  in 
bodily  hardship.  Not  that  our  men  minded 
hardship;  they  did  not;  they  were  volunteers 
who  had  chosen  their  fate  and  were  there  of 
their  own  choice,  and  no  army  in  the  world  has 
ever  faced  suffering  more  cheerily.  But  this 
hardship  of  thirst  was  a  weight  upon  them, 
throughout  the  summer;  like  malaria  it  did  not 
kill,  but  it  lowered  all  vitality.  It  halved  the 
possible  effort  of  men  always  too  few  for  the 
work  in  hand.  Let  it  now  double  the  honour 
paid  to  them. 

In  the  sandy  soil  of  the  Peninsula  were  many 
minute  amoebae,  which  played  their  part  in  the 


132  Gallipoli 

summer  suffering.  In  the  winds  of  the  great 
droughts  of  July  and  August  the  dust  blew 
about  our  positions  like  smoke  from  burning 
hills.  It  fell  into  food  and  water  and  was 
eaten  and  drunk  (like  the  flies)  at  each  meal. 
Within  the  human  body  the  amoebae  of  the  sand 
set  up  symptoms  like  those  of  dysentery,  as  a 
rule  slightly  less  severe  than  the  true  dysentery 
of  camps.  After  July,  nearly  every  man  in 
our  army  in  Gallipoli,  suffered  from  this  evil. 
Like  the  thirst,  it  lowered  more  vitality  than 
it  destroyed;  many  died,  it  is  true,  but  then 
nearly  all  were  ill:  it  was  the  universal  sickness 
not  the  occasional  death  that  mattered. 

Pass  now  to  the  position  of  affairs  at  the 
end  of  June.  We  were  left  to  our  own  strength 
in  this  struggle,  the  Turks  were  shaken :  it  was 
vital  to  our  chances  to  attack  again  before  they 
recovered.  We  had  not  the  men  to  attack 
again,  but  they  were  coming  and  were  due  in 
a  few  weeks'  time.  While  they  were  on  their 
way,  the  question,  how  to  use  them,  was  con- 
sidered. 


Gallipoli  133 

As  the  army's  task  was  to  help  the  fleet 
through  the  Narrows  it  had  to  operate  in 
the  southwestern  portion  of  the  Peninsula. 
Further  progress  against  Achi  Baba  in  the 
Helles  sector  was  hardly  possible;  for  the 
Turks  had  added  too  greatly  to  their  trenches 
there  since  the  attacks  of  April  and  May. 
Operations  on  the  Asian  coast  were  hardly  pos- 
sible without  a  second  army;  operations  against 
Bulair  were  not  likely  to  help  the  fleet.  Opera- 
tions in  the  Anzac  sector  offered  better  chances 
of  success.  It  was  hoped  that  a  thrust  south- 
eastward from  Anzac  might  bring  our  men 
across  to  the  Narrows  or  to  the  top  of  the 
ridges  which  command  the  road  to  Constan- 
tinople. It  was  reasonable  to  think  that  such 
a  thrust,  backed  up  by  a  new  landing  in  force 
to  the  north,  in  Suvla  Bay,  might  turn  the 
Turkish  right  and  destroy  it.  If  the  men  at 
Helles  attacked,  to  contain  the  Turks  in  the 
south,  and  the  men  on  the  right  of  Anzac  at- 
tacked, to  hold  the  Turks  at  Anzac,  it  was 
possible  that  men  on  the  left  of  Anzac,  backed 


134  Gallipoli 

up  by  a  new  force  marching  from  Suvla,  might 
give  a  decisive  blow.  The  Turk  position  on 
the  Peninsula  roughly  formed  a  letter  L.  The 
plan  (as  it  shaped)  was  to  attack  the  horizon- 
tal line  at  Cape  Helles,  press  the  centre  of  the 
vertical  line  at  Anzac,  and  bend  back,  crumple 
and  break  the  top  of  the  vertical  line  between 
the  Anzac  position  and  Suvla.  At  the  same 
time,  Suvla  Bay  was  to  be  seized  and  prepared 
as  a  harbour  at  which  supplies  might  be  landed, 
even  in  the  stormy  season. 

Some  soldier  has  said,  that  "  the  simple 
thing  is  the  difficult  thing."  The  idea  seems 
simple  to  us,  because  the  difficulty  has  been 
cleared  away  for  us  by  another  person's  hard 
thought.  Such  a  scheme  of  battle,  difficult  to 
think  out  in  the  strain  of  holding  on  and  under 
the  temptation  to  go  slowly,  improving  what 
was  held,  was  also  difficult  to  execute.  Very 
few  of  the  great  battles  of  history,  not  even 
those  in  Russia,  in  Manchuria,  and  in  the  Vir- 
ginian Wilderness  have  been  fought  on  such 
difficult  ground,  under  such  difficult  conditions. 

The    chosen    battlefield     (the  southwestern 


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Gal  lip  oli  135 

end  of  the  Peninsula)  has  already  been  de- 
scribed; the  greater  part  of  it  consists  of  the 
Cape  Helles  and  Anzac  positions,  but  the  vital 
or  decisive  point,  where,  if  all  went  well,  the 
Turk  right  was  to  be  bent  back,  broken  and 
routed,  lies  to  the  north  of  Anzac  on  the  spurs 
and  outlying  bastions  of  Sari  Bair. 

Suvla  Bay,  where  the  new  landing  was  to 
take  place,  lies  three  miles  to  the  north  of 
Anzac.  It  is  a  broad,  rather  shallow  semi- 
circular bay  (open  to  the  west  and  southwest) 
with  a  partly  practicable  beach,  some  of  it 
(the  southern  part)  fairly  flat  and  sandy,  the 
rest  steepish  and  rocky  though  broken  by 
creeks.  Above  it,  one  on  the  north,  one  on 
the  south  horn  of  the  bay,  rise  two  small  low 
knolls  or  hillocks  known  as  Ghazi  Baba  and 
Lala  Baba,  the  latter  a  clearly  marked  tactical 
feature.  To  the  north,  beyond  the  horn  of 
the  bay,  the  coast  is  high,  steep-to  sandy  cliff, 
broken  with  gullies  and  washed  by  deep  water, 
but  to  the  south,  all  the  way  to  Anzac  the 
coast  is  a  flat,  narrow,  almost  straight  sweep  of 
sandy  shore  shutting  a  salt  marsh  and  a  couple 


136  Gallipoli 

of  miles  of  lowland  from  the  sea;  it  is  a  lagoon 
beach  of  the  common  type,  with  the  usual 
feature  of  shallow  water  in  the  sea  that  washes 
it.  The  northern  half  of  this  beach  is  known 
as  Beach  C,  the  southern  as  Beach  B. 

Viewed  from  the  sea,  the  coast  chosen  for 
the  new  landing  seems  comparatively  flat  and 
gentle,  seemingly,  though  not  really,  easy  to 
land  upon,  but  with  no  good  military  position 
near  it.  It  looks  as  though  once,  long  ago, 
the  sea  had  thrust  far  inland  there,  in  a  big 
bay  or  harbour  stretching  from  the  high  ground 
to  the  north  of  Suvla  to  the  left  of  the  Anzac 
position.  This  bay,  if  it  ever  existed,  must 
have  been  four  miles  long  and  four  miles  across, 
a  very  noble  space  of  water,  ringed  by  big, 
broken,  precipitous  hills,  into  which  it  thrust  in 
innumerable  creeks  and  combes.  Then  (pos- 
sibly) in  the  course  of  ages,  silt  brought  down 
by  the  torrents  choked  the  bay,  and  pushed  the 
sea  further  and  further  back,  till  nothing  re- 
mained of  the  harbour  but  the  existing  Suvla 
Bay  and  the  salt  marsh  (dry  in  summer) .  The 
hills  ringing  Suvla  Bay  and  this  flat  or  slightly 


jtMWJ  Ay  'S.mi  -J*~i~. 


Map  No.  3 


\ 


Gal  lip  oli  137 

rising  expanse  which  may  once  have  been  a  part 
of  it,  stand  (to  the  fancy)  like  a  rank  that  has 
beaten  back  an  attack.  They  are  high  and 
proud  to  the  north,  they  stand  in  groups  in  the 
centre,  but  to  the  south,  where  they  link  on  to 
the  broken  cliffs  of  the  Anzac  position,  they 
are  heaped  in  tumbling  precipitous  disordered 
bulges  of  hill,  cut  by  every  kind  of  cleft  and 
crumpled  into  every  kind  of  fold,  as  though 
the  dry  land  had  there  been  put  to  it  to  keep 
out  the  sea.  These  hills  are  the  scene  of  the 
bitterest  fighting  of  the  battle. 

Although  these  hills  in  the  Suvla  district 
stand  in  a  rank,  yet  in  the  centre  of  the  rank 
there  are  two  gaps  where  the  ancient  harbour 
of  our  fancy  thrust  creeks  far  inland.  These 
gaps  or  creeks  open  a  little  to  the  south  of  the 
north  and  south  limits  of  Suvla  Bay.  They 
are  watered,  cultivated  valleys  with  roads  or 
tracks  in  them.  In  the  northern  valley  is  a 
village  of  some  sixty  houses  called  Anafarta 
Sagir,  or  Little  Anafarta.  In  the  southern 
valley  is  a  rather  larger  village  of  some  ninety 
houses  called  Biyuk  Anafarta,   or  Great  An- 


138  Galli  poll 

afarta.     The   valleys    are    called   after   these 
villages. 

Between  these  valleys  is  a  big  blunt-headed 
jut  or  promontory   of  higher   ground,   which 
thrusts  out  towards  the  bay.     At  the  Suvla  end 
of  this  jut,  about  1,000  yards  from  the  bight 
of  the  Salt  Marsh,  it  shoots  up  in  three  peaks 
or  top  knots  two  of  them  united  in  the  lump 
called    Chocolate    Hill,    the    other   known    as 
Scimitar  Hill  or  Hill  70;  all,  roughly,  150  feet 
high.     About    a    mile    directly    inland    from 
Chocolate  Hill  is  a  peak  of  about  twice  the 
height,  called  Ismail  Oglu  Tepe,  an  abrupt  and 
savage  heap  of  cliff,  dented  with  chasms,  harshly 
scarped  at  the   top,   and   covered  with   dense 
thorn    scrub.     This    hill   is    the    southernmost 
feature  in  the  northern  half  of  the  battle-field. 
The  valley  of  Great  Anafarta,  which  runs  east 
and  west  below  it,  cuts  the  battle-field  in  two. 
The   southern   side   of  the   Great  Anafarta 
valley  is  just  that  disarrangement  of  precipitous 
bulged  hill  which  rises  and  falls  in  crags,  peaks 
and   gulleys   all   the   way   from  the  valley  to 
Anzac.     Few  parts  of  the  earth  can  be  more 


Gallipoli  139 

broken  and  disjointed  than  this  mass  of  preci- 
pice, combes  and  ravines.  A  savage  climate 
has  dealt  with  it  since  the  beginning  of  time, 
with  great  heats,  frosts  and  torrents.  It  is 
not  so  much  a  ridge  or  chain  of  hills  as  the 
manifold  outlying  bastions  and  buttresses  of 
Sari  Bair,  from  which  they  are  built  out  in 
craggy  bulges  parted  by  ravines.  It  may  be 
said  that  Sari  Bair  begins  at  Gaba  Tepe  (to  the 
south  of  the  Anzac  position)  and  stretches 
thence  northeasterly  towards  Great  Anafarta 
in  a  rolling  and  confused  five  miles  of  hill  that 
has  all  the  features  of  a  mountain.  It  is  not 
high.  Its  peaks  range  from  about  250  to  600 
feet;  its  chief  peak  (Koja  Chemen  Tepe)  is  a 
little  more  than  900  feet.  Nearly  all  of  it  is 
trackless,  waterless  and  confused,  densely  cov- 
ered with  scrub  (sometimes  with  forest)  lit- 
tered with  rocks,  an  untamed  savage  country. 
The  southwestern  half  of  it  made  the  Anzac 
position,  the  northeastern  and  higher  half  was 
the  prize  to  be  fought  for. 

It  is  the  watershed  of  that  part  of  the  Penin- 
sula.    The  gulleys  on  its  south  side  drain  down 


140  Galli  poll 

to  the  Hellespont;  those  upon  its  north  side 
drain  to  the  flat  land  which  may  once  have  been 
submerged  as  a  part  of  Suvla  Bay.  These 
northern  gulleys  are  great  savage  irregular 
gashes  or  glens  running  westerly  or  north- 
westerly from  the  hill  bastions.  Three  of 
them,  the  three  nearest  to  the  northern  end  of 
the  Anzac  position,  may  be  mentioned  by  name : 
Sazli  Beit  Dere,  Chailak  Dere,  and  Aghyl 
Dere.  The  word  Dere  means  watercourse; 
but  all  three  were  bone  dry  in  August  when  the 
battle  was  fought.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  in  the  trackless  Peninsula  a  watercourse  of 
this  kind  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a  road,  and 
(to  a  military  force)  the  nearest  approach  to 
a  covered  way.  All  these  three  Deres  lead  up 
the  heart  of  the  hills  to  those  highlands  of  Sari 
Bair  where  we  wished  to  plant  ourselves. 
From  the  top  of  Sari  Bair  one  can  look  down 
on  the  whole  Turkish  position  facing  Anzac, 
and  see  that  position  not  only  dominated  but 
turned  and  taken  in  reverse.  One  can  see 
(only  three  miles  away)  the  only  road  to  Con- 
stantinople,   and    (five   miles   away)    the   little 


Gallipoli  141 

port  of  Maidos  near  the  Narrows.  To  us  the 
taking  of  Sari  Bair  meant  the  closing  of  that 
road  to  the  passing  of  Turk  reinforcements, 
and  the  opening  of  the  Narrows  to  the  fleet. 
It  meant  victory,  and  the  beginning  of  the  end 
of  this  great  war,  with  home  and  leisure  for 
life  again,  and  all  that  peace  means.  Knowing 
this,  our  soldiers  made  a  great  struggle  for 
Sari  Bair,  but  Fate  turned  the  lot  against  them. 
Sari  was  not  to  be  an  English  hill,  though  the 
flowers  on  her  sides  will  grow  out  of  English 
dust  forever.  Those  who  lie  there  thought,  as 
they  fell,  that  over  their  bodies  our  race  would 
pass  to  victory.  It  may  be  that  their  spirits 
linger  there  at  this  moment,  waiting  for  the 
English  bugles  and  the  English  singing,  and  the 
sound  of  the  English  ships  passing  up  the  Hel- 
lespont. 

Among  her  tumble  of  hills,  from  the  Anzac 
position  to  Great  Anafarta,  Sari  Bair  thrusts 
out  several  knolls,  peaks  and  commanding 
heights.  Within  the  Anzac  position,  is  the 
little  plateau  of  Lone  or  Lonesome  Pine  to  be 
described  later.     Further  to  the  northeast  are 


142  Gallipoli 

the  heights  known  as  Baby  700  and  Battleship 
Hill,  and  beyond  these,  still  further  to  the 
northeast,  the  steep  peak  of  Chunuk  Bair.  All 
of  these  before  this  battle  were  held  by  the 
Turks,  whose  trenches  defended  them.  Lone 
Pine  is  about  400  feet  high,  the  others  rather 
more,  slowly  rising,  as  they  go  northeast,  but 
keeping  to  about  the  height  of  the  English 
Chilterns.  Chunuk  Bair,  the  highest  of  these, 
is  about  750  feet.  Beyond  Chunuk,  half-a-mile 
further  to  the  northeast,  is  Hill  Q,  and  beyond 
Hill  Q  a  very  steep  deep  gulley,  above  which 
rises  the  beautiful  peak,  the  summit  of  Sari, 
known  as  Koja  Chemen  Tepe.  One  or  two 
Irish  hills  in  the  wilder  parts  of  Antrim  are 
like  this  peak,  though  less  fleeced  with  brush. 
In  height,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  a  little  more  than 
900  feet,  or  about  the  height  of  our  Bredon 
Hill.  One  point  about  it  may  be  noted.  It 
thrusts  out  a  great  spur  or  claw  for  rather  more 
than  a  mile  due  north;  this  spur,  which  is  much 
gullied,  is  called  Abd-el-Rahman  Bair. 

For  the  moment,  Chunuk  Bair  is  the  most 
important  point  to  remember,  because  — 


Gallipoli  143 

(a)  It  was  the  extreme  right  of  the  pre- 
pared Turk  position. 

(b)  The  three  Deres  mentioned  a  couple  of 
pages  back  have  their  sources  at  its  foot  and 
start  there,  like  three  roads  starting  from  the 
walls  of  a  city  on  their  way  to  the  sea.  They 
lead  past  the  hills  known  as  Table  Top  and 
Rhododendron  Spur.  Close  to  their  begin- 
nings at  the  foot  of  Chunuk  is  a  building  known 
as  The  Farm,  round  which  the  fighting  was 
very  fierce. 

The  "  idea  "  or  purpose  of  the  battle  was 
"  to  endeavour  to  seize  a  position  across  the 
Gallipoli  Peninsular  from  Gaba  Tep  to  Maidos, 
with  a  protected  line  of  supply  from  Suvla 
Bay." 

The  plan  of  the  attack  was,  that  a  strong 
force  in  Anzac  should  endeavour  to  throw  back 
the  right  wing  of  the  Turks,  drive  them  south 
towards  Kilid  Bahr  and  thus  secure  a  position 
commanding  the  narrow  part  of  the  Peninsula. 

Meanwhile  a  large  body  of  troops  should 
secure  Suvla,  and  another  large  body,  landing 
at  Suvla,  should  clear  away  any  Turkish  forces 


144  Gallipoli 

on  the  hills  between  the  Anafarta  valleys,  and 
then  help  the  attacking  force  from  Anzac  by 
storming  Sari  Bair  from  the  north  and  west. 

The  6th  of  August  was  fixed  for  the  first  day 
of  the  attack  from  Anzac;  the  landing  at  Suvla 
was  to  take  place  during  the  dark  hours  of 
the  night  of  the  6th~7th.  "  The  6th  was  both 
the  earliest  and  the  latest  date  possible  for  the 
battle,  the  earliest,  because  it  was  the  first  by 
which  the  main  part  of  the  reinforcements 
would  be  ready,  the  latest,  because  of  the 
moon."  Both  in  the  preparation  and  the  sur- 
prise of  this  attack  dark  nights  were  essential. 

Sir  Ian  Hamilton's  Despatch  (reprinted 
from  the  London  Gazette  of  Tuesday,  the  4th 
January,  1916)  shows  that  this  battle  of  the 
6th-ioth  August  was  perhaps  the  strangest  and 
most  difficult  battle  ever  planned  by  mortal 
general.  It  was  to  be  a  triple  battle,  fought 
by  three  separated  armies,  not  in  direct  com- 
munication with  each  other.  [There  was  no 
place  from  which  the  battle,  as  a  whole,  could 
be  controlled,  nearer  than  the  island  of  Imbros, 
(fourteen  miles  from  any  part  of  the  Peninsula) 


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Galli  poll  145 

to  which  telegraphic  cables  led  from  Anzac  and 
Cape  Helles.  The  left  wing  of  our  army,  de- 
signed for  the  landing  at  Suvla,  was  not  only 
not  landed,  when  the  battle  began,  but  not  con- 
centrated. There  was  no  adjacent  subsidiary 
base  big  enough  (or  nearly  big  enough)  to  hold 
it.  "  On  the  day  before  the  battle,  part  were 
at  Imbros,  part  at  Mudros,  and  part  at  Mity- 
lene  .  .  .  separated  respectively  by  14,  60,  and 
120  miles  of  sea  from  the  arena  into  which 
they  were  simultaneously  to  appear."  The 
vital  part  of  the  fight  was  to  be  fought  by 
troops  from  Anzac.  The  Anzac  position  was 
an  open  book  to  every  Turk  aeroplane  and 
every  observer  on  Sari  Bair.  The  reinforce- 
ments for  this  part  of  the  battle  had  to  be 
landed  in  the  dark,  some  days  before  the 
battle,  and  kept  hidden  underground,  during 
daylight,  so  that  the  Turks  should  not  see  them 
and  suspect  what  was  being  planned. 

In  all  wars,  but  especially  in  modern  wars, 
great  tactical  combinations  have  been  betrayed 
by  very  little  things.  In  war,  as  in  life,  the 
unusual  thing,  however  little,  betrays  the  un- 


146  Gallipoli 

usual  thing,  however  great.  An  odd  bit  of 
paper  round  some  cigars  betrayed  the  hopes  of 
the  American  Secession,  some  litter  in  the  sea 
told  Nelson  where  the  French  fleet  was,  one  man 
rising  up  in  the  grass  by  a  roadside  saved  the 
wealth  of  Peru  from  the  hands  of  Drake.  The 
Turks  wrere  always  expecting  an  attack  from 
Anzac.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  they 
searched  the  Anzac  position  hourly  for  the  cer- 
tain signs  of  an  attack,  reinforcements  and 
supplies.  They  had  not  even  to  search  the 
whole  position  for  these  signs,  since  there  was 
only  one  place  (towards  Fisherman's  Hut) 
where  they  could  be  put.  If  they  had  sus- 
pected that  men  and  stores  were  being  landed, 
they  would  have  guessed  at  once,  that  a  thrust 
was  to  be  made,  and  our  attacks  upon  their 
flanks  wrould  have  met  with  a  prepared  defence. 
It  was  vital  to  our  chance  of  success  that 
nothing  unusual,  however  little,  should  be 
visible  in  Anzac  from  the  Turk  positions  during 
the  days  before  the  battle.  One  man  staring 
up  at  an  aeroplane  would  have  been  evidence 
enough  to  a  quick  observer  that  there  was  a 


Gallipoli  147 

new-comer  on  the  scene.  One  new  water  tank, 
one  new  gun,  one  mule  not  yet  quiet  from  the 
shock  of  landing,  might  have  betrayed  all  the 
adventure.  Very  nearly  thirty  thousand  men, 
one  whole  Division  and  one  Brigade  of  English 
soldiers,  and  a  Brigade  of  Gurkhas,  with  their 
guns  and  stores,  had  to  be  landed  unobserved 
and  hidden. 

There  was  only  one  place  in  which  they  could 
be  hidden,  and  that  was  under  the  ground. 
The  Australians  had  to  dig  hiding  places  for 
them  before  they  came. 

In  this  war  of  digging,  the  daily  life  in  the 
trenches  gives  digging  enough  to  every  soldier. 
Men  dig  daily  even  if  they  do  not  fight.  At 
Anzac  in  July  the  Australians  had  a  double 
share  of  digging,  their  daily  share  in  the  front 
lines,  and,  when  that  was  finished,  their  nightly 
share,  preparing  cover  for  the  new  troops. 
During  the  nights  of  the  latter  half  of  July  the 
Australians  at  Anzac  dug,  roofed  and  covered 
not  less  than  twenty  miles  of  dugouts.  All  of 
this  work  was  done  in  their  sleep  time,  after 
the  normal  day's  work  of  fighting,  digging  and 


148  Galli  poll 

carrying  up  stores.  Besides  digging  these 
hiding  places  they  carried  up,  fixed,  hid,  and 
filled  the  water  tanks  which  were  to  supply  the 
new-comers. 

On  the  night  of  the  3rd  of  August  when  the 
landing  of  the  new  men  began,  the  work  was 
doubled.  Everybody  who  could  be  spared 
from  the  front  trenches  went  to  the  piers  to 
help  to  land,  carry  inland  and  hide  the  guns, 
stores,  carts  and  animals  coming  ashore.  The 
nights,  though  lengthening,  were  still  summer 
nights.  There  were  seven  hours  of  semi-dark- 
ness in  which  to  cover  up  all  traces  of  what 
came  ashore.  The  new-comers  landed  at  the 
rate  of  about  1,500  an  hour,  during  the  nights 
of  the  3rd,  4th  and  5th  of  August.  During 
those  nights,  the  Australians  landed,  carried 
inland  and  hid  not  less  than  one  thousand  tons 
of  shells,  cartridges  and  food,  some  hundreds 
of  horses  and  mules,  many  guns,  and  two  or 
three  hundred  water-carts  and  ammunition 
carts.  All  night-long,  for  those  three  nights, 
the  Australians  worked  like  schoolboys. 
Often,   towards  dawn,   it  was   a   race   against 


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Gallipoli  149 

time,  but  always  at  dawn,  the  night's  tally  of 
new  troops  were  in  their  billets,  the  new  stores 
were  under  ground  and  the  new  horses  hidden. 
When  the  morning  aeroplanes  came  over,  their 
observers  saw  nothing  unusual  in  any  part  of 
Anzac.  The  half-naked  men  were  going  up 
and  down  the  gullies,  the  wholly  naked  men 
were  bathing  in  the  sea,  everything  else  was  as 
it  had  always  been,  nor  were  any  transports  on 
the  coast.  For  those  three  nights  nearly  all  the 
Australians  at  Anzac  gave  up  most  of  their 
sleep.  They  had  begun  the  work  by  digging 
the  cover,  they  took  a  personal  pride  and  pleas- 
ure in  playing  the  game  of  cache-cache  to  the 
end. 

It  is  difficult  to  praise  a  feat  of  the  kind  and 
still  more  difficult  to  make  people  understand 
what  the  work  meant.  Those  smiling  and 
glorious  young  giants  thought  little  of  it. 
They  loved  their  chiefs  and  they  liked  the  fun, 
and  when  praised  for  it  looked  away  with  a 
grin.  The  labour  of  the  task  can  only  be  felt 
by  those  who  have  done  hard  manual  work  in 
hot  climates.     Digging  is  one  of  the  hardest 


150  Gallipoli 

kinds  of  work,  even  when  done  in  a  garden  with 
a  fork.  When  done  in  a  trench  with  a  pick 
and  shovel  it  is  as  hard  work  as  threshing  with 
a  flail.  Carrying  heavy  weights  over  uneven 
ground  is  harder  work  still;  and  to  do  either 
of  these  things  on  a  salt-meat  diet  with  a  scanty 
allowance  of  water,  is  very,  very  hard;  but  to 
do  them  at  night  after  a  hard  day's  work,  in- 
stead of  sleeping,  is  hardest  of  all;  even  farm- 
labourers  would  collapse  and  sailors  mutiny 
when  asked  to  do  this  last.  It  may  be  said 
that  no  one  could  have  done  this  labour,  but 
splendid  young  men  splendidly  encouraged  to 
do  their  best.  Many  of  these  same  young  men 
who  had  toiled  thus  almost  without  sleep  for 
three  days  and  nights,  fell  in  with  the  others 
and  fought  all  through  the  battle. 

But  all  this  preparation  was  a  setting  of  prec- 
edents and  the  doing  of  something  new  to  war. 
Never  before  have  25,000  men  been  kept 
buried  under  an  enemy's  eye  until  the  hour  for 
the  attack.  Never  before  have  two  Divisions 
of  all  arms  been  brought  up  punctually,  by  ship, 
over  many  miles  of  sea,  from  different  ports, 


Gallipoli  151 

to  land  under  fire,  at  an  appointed  time,  to 
fulfil  a  great  tactical  scheme. 

But  all  these  difficulties  were  as  nothing  to 
the  difficulty  of  making  sure  that  the  men  fight- 
ing in  the  blinding  heat  of  a  Gallipoli  August 
should  have  enough  water  to  drink.  Eighty 
tons  of  water  a  day  does  not  seem  very  much. 
It  had  only  to  be  brought  five  hundred  miles, 
which  does  not  seem  very  far,  to  those  who  in 
happy  peace  can  telephone  for  80  tons  of  any- 
thing to  be  sent  five  hundred  miles  to  anywhere. 
But  in  war,  weight,  distance  and  time  become 
terrible  and  tragic  things,  involving  the  lives 
of  armies.  The  water  supply  of  that  far 
battlefield,  indifferent  as  it  was,  at  the  best,  was 
a  triumph  of  resolve  and  skill  unequalled  yet 
in  war.  It  is  said  that  Wellington  boasted 
that,  while  Napoleon  could  handle  men,  he, 
Wellington,  could  feed  them.  Our  naval 
officers  can  truly  say  that,  while  Sir  Ian  Hamil- 
ton can  handle  men,  they  can  give  them  drink. 

As  to  the  enemy  before  the  battle,  it  was 
estimated  that  (apart  from  the  great  strategi- 
cal reserves  within  30  or  40  miles)  there  were 


152  Gallipoli 

30,000  Turks  in  the  vital  part  of  the  battle- 
field, to  the  north  of  Kilid  Bahr.  Twelve 
thousand  of  these  were  in  the  trenches  opposite 
Anzac;  most  of  the  rest  in  the  villages  two 
or  three  miles  to  the  south  and  southeast  of 
Sari  Bair.  Three  battalions  were  in  the  Anaf- 
arta  villages,  one  battalion  was  entrenched  on 
Ismail  Oglu  Tepe;  small  outposts  held  the  two 
Baba  hillocks  on  the  bay,  and  the  land  north 
of  the  bay  was  patrolled  by  mounted  gen- 
darmerie. These  scattered  troops  on  the  Turk 
right  had  guns  with  them;  it  was  not  known 
how  many.  The  beach  of  Suvla  was  known  to 
be  mined. 

August  began  with  calm  weather.  The 
scattered  regiments  of  the  Divisions  for  Suvla, 
after  some  weeks  of  hard  exercise  ashore,  were 
sent  on  board  their  transports.  At  a  little  be- 
fore four  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  the  6th 
August,  the  29th  Division  began  the  battle  by 
an  assault  on  the  Turk  positions  below  Krithia. 


Roland  put  the  horn  to  his  mouth,  gripped  it  hard 
and  with  great  heart  blew  it.  The  hills  were  high  and 
the  sound  went  very  far:  thirty  leagues  wide  they  heard 
it  echo.  Charles  heard  it  and  all  his  comrades;  so  the 
King  said,  "  Our  men  are  fighting."  Count  Guenes 
answered:  "  If  any  other  said  that,  I  should  call  him 
a  liar." 

Count  Roland  in  pain  and  woe  and  great  weakness 
blew  his  horn.  The  bright  blood  was  running  from 
his  mouth  and  the  temples  of  his  brains  were  broken. 
But  the  noise  of  the  horn  was  very  great.  Charles 
heard  it  as  he  was  passing  at  the  ports;  Naimes  heard 
it,  the  Franks  listened  to  it.  So  the  King  said,  "  I 
hear  the  horn  of  Roland ;  he  would  never  sound  it  if  he 
were  not  fighting."  Guenes  answered,  "  There  is  no 
fighting.  You  are  old  and  white  and  hoary.  You  are 
like  a  child  when  you  say  such  things." 

Count  Roland's  mouth  was  bleeding;  the  temples 
of  his  brain  were  broken.  He  blew  his  horn  in  weak- 
ness and  pain.  Charles  heard  it  and  his  Franks  heard 
it.     So  the  King  said:     "  That  horn  has  long  breath." 


Duke  Naimes  answered,  "  Roland  is  in  trouble.  He  is 
fighting,  on  my  conscience.  Arm  yourself.  Cry  your 
war-cry.  Help  the  men  of  your  house.  You  hear 
plainly  that  Roland  is  in  trouble." 

The  Emperor  made  sound  his  horns.  .  .  .  All  the 
barons  of  the  army  mounted  their  chargers.  But  what 
use  was  that?  They  had  delayed  too  long.  What 
use  was  that?  It  was  worth  nothing;  they  had  stayed 
too  long;  they  could  not  be  in  time. 

Then  Roland  said,  "  Here  we  shall  receive  martyr- 
dom, and  now  I  know  well  that  we  have  but  a  moment 
to  live.  But  may  all  be  thieves  who  do  not  sell  them- 
selves dearly  first.  Strike,  knights,  with  your  bright 
swords;  so  change  your  deaths  and  lives,  that  sweet 
France  be  not  shamed  by  us.  When  Charles  comes 
into  this  field  he  shall  see  such  discipline  upon  the 
Saracens  that  he  shall  not  fail  to  bless  us." 

The  Song  of  Roland. 


The  Cape  Helles  attack,  designed  to  keep  the 
Turks  to  the  south  of  Kilid  Bahr  from  rein- 
forcing those  near  Anzac,  became  a  very  des- 
perate struggle.  The  Turk  trenches  there  were 
full  of  men,  for  the  Turks  had  been  preparing 
a  strong  attack  upon  ourselves,  which  we  fore- 
stalled by  a  few  hours.  The  severe  fighting 
lasted  for  a  week  along  the  whole  Cape  Helles 
front,  but  it  was  especially  bloody  and  terrible 
in  the  centre,  in  a  vineyard  to  the  west  of  the 
Krithia  road.  It  has  often  happened  in  war, 
that  some  stubbornness  in  attack  or  defence 
has  roused  the  same  quality  in  the  opposer,  till 
the  honour  of  the  armies  seems  pledged  to  the 
taking  or  holding  of  one  patch  of  ground,  per- 
haps not  vital  to  the  battle.  It  may  be  that  in 
war  one  resolute  soul  can  bind  the  excited  minds 
of  multitudes  in  a  kind  of  bloody  mesmerism; 
but  these  strange  things  are  not  studied  as  they 
should  be.  Near  Krithia,  the  battle,  which 
began  as  a  containing  attack,  a  minor  part  of 

i55 


156  Gal  lip  oli 

a  great  scheme,  became  a  furious  week-long 
fight  for  this  vineyard,  a  little  patch  of  ground 
"  200  yards  long  by  100  yards  broad." 

From  the  6th-i3th  of  August,  the  fight  for 
this  vineyard  never  ceased.  Our  Lancashire 
regiments  won  most  of  it  at  the  first  assault  on 
the  6th.  For  the  rest  of  the  week  they  held 
it  against  all  that  the  Turks  could  bring  against 
them.  It  was  not  a  battle  in  the  military  text- 
book sense :  it  was  a  fight  man  to  man,  between 
two  enemies  whose  blood  was  up.  It  was  a 
week-long  cursing  and  killing  scrimmage,  the 
men  lying  down  to  fire  and  rising  up  to  fight 
with  the  bayonet,  literally  all  day  long,  day 
after  day,  the  two  sides  within  easy  bombing 
distance  all  the  time.  The  Turks  lost  some 
thousands  of  men  in  their  attacks  upon  this 
vineyard  after  a  week  of  fighting,  they  rushed 
it  in  a  night  attack,  were  soon  bombed  out  of 
it  and  then  gave  up  the  struggle  for  it.  This 
bitter  fighting  not  only  kept  the  Turks  at  Cape 
Helles  from  reinforcing  those  at  Anzac;  it 
caused  important  Turk  reinforcements  to  be 
sent  to  the  Helles  sector. 


Galli  poli  157 

Less  than  an  hour  after  the  29th  Division 
began  the  containing  battle  at  Krithia,  the 
Australians  at  Anzac  began  theirs.  This,  the 
attack  on  the  Turk  fort  at  Lone  Pine,  in  the 
southern  half  of  the  Anzac  front,  was  designed 
to  keep  large  bodies  of  Turks  from  reinforcing 
their  right,  on  Sari  Bair,  where  the  decisive 
blow  was  to  be  struck.  It  was  a  secondary 
operation,  not  the  main  thrust,  but  it  was  in 
itself  important,  since  to  those  at  Anzac,  the 
hill  of  Lone  Pine  was  the  gate  into  the  nar- 
rowest part  of  the  Peninsula,  and  through  that 
gate,  as  the  Turks  very  well  knew,  a  rush  might 
be  made  from  Anzac  upon  Maidos  and  the 
Narrows.  Such  a  thrust  from  Lone  Pine,  turn- 
ing all  the  Turkish  works  on  the  range  of  Sari 
Bair,  was  what  the  Turks  expected  and  feared 
from  us.  They  had  shewn  us  as  much,  quite 
plainly,  all  through  the  summer.  Any  move- 
ment, feint,  or  demonstration  against  Lone 
Pine,  brought  up  their  reserves  at  once.  It 
was  the  sensitive  spot  on  their  not  too  strong 
left  wing.  If  we  won  through  there,  we  had 
their  main  water  supply  as  an  immediate  prize 


158  Galli  poll 

and  no  other  position  in  front  of  us  from 
which  we  could  be  held.  Any  strong  attack 
there  was  therefore  certain  to  contain  fully  half 
a  division  of  the  enemy. 

The  hill  of  Lone  or  Lonesome  Pine  is  a  little 
plateau  less  than  400  feet  high  running  N.  W. 
S.  E.  and  measuring  perhaps  250  yards  long 
by  200  across.  On  its  southwestern  side  it 
drops  down  in  gullies  to  a  col  or  ridge,  known 
as  Pine  Ridge,  which  gradually  declines  away 
to  the  low  ground  near  Gaba  Tepe.  On  its 
northeastern  side  it  joins  the  high  ground 
known  as  Johnston's  Jolly,  which  was,  alas, 
neither  jolly  nor  Johnston's,  but  a  strong  part 
of  the  Turk  position. 

We  already  held  a  little  of  the  Lone  Pine 
Plateau;  our  trenches  bulged  out  into  it  in  a 
convexity  or  salient  known  as  The  Pimple,  but 
the  Turks  held  the  greater  part,  and  their 
trenches  curved  out  the  other  way,  in  a  mouth, 
concavity  or  trap  opening  towards  The  Pimple 
as  though  ready  to  swallow  it.  The  opposing 
lines  of  trenches  ran  from  north  to  south  across 
the  plateau,  with  from  50  to  100  yards  between 


Gallipoli  159 

them.  Both  to  the  north  and  south  of  the 
plateau  are  deep  gullies.  Just  beyond  these 
gullies  Turk  trenches  were  so  placed  that  the 
machine  guns  in  them  could  sweep  the  whole 
plateau.  The  space  between  the  Australian 
and  Turk  lines  was  fairly  level  hill-top,  covered 
with  thyme  and  short  scrub. 

For  some  days  before  the  6th  August  the 
warships  had  been  shelling  the  Turk  position 
on  Lone  Pine  to  knock  away  the  barbed  wire 
in  front  of  it.  On  the  5th,  the  Australian 
brigade,  told  off  for  the  attack,  sharpened 
bayonets  and  prepared  their  distinguishing 
marks  of  white  bands  for  the  left  arms  and 
white  patches  for  the  backs  of  their  right 
shoulders.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  6th  the 
shelling  by  the  ships  became  more  intense;  at 
half-past  four  it  quickened  to  a  very  heavy  fire ; 
at  exactly  half-past  five  it  stopped  suddenly, 
"  the  three  short  whistle  blasts  sounded  and 
were  taken  up  along  the  line,  our  men  cleared 
the  parapet,"  in  two  waves  on  a  front  of  about 
160  yards,  "  and  attacked  with  vigour."  The 
hill  top  over  which  they  charged  was  in  a  night 


160  Gallipoli 

of  smoke  and  dust  from  the  explosions  of  the 
shells,  and  into  that  night,  already  singing  with 
enemy  bullets,  the  Australians  disappeared. 
They  had  not  gone  twenty  yards  before  all  that 
dark  and  blazing  hill  top  was  filled  with  ex- 
plosion and  flying  missiles  from  every  enemy 
gun.  One  speaks  of  a  hail  of  bullets,  but  no 
hail  is  like  fire,  no  hail  in  a  form  of  death  cry- 
ing aloud  a  note  of  death,  no  hail  screams  as 
it  strikes  a  stone,  or  stops  a  strong  man  in  his 
stride.  Across  that  kind  of  hail  the  Austral- 
ians charged  on  Lone  Pine.  "  It  was  a  grim 
kind  of  steeplechase,"  said  one,  "  but  we  meant 
to  get  to  Koja  Dere."  They  reached  the 
crumpled  wire  of  the  entanglement,  and  got 
through  it  to  the  parapet  of  the  Turk  trench, 
where  they  were  held  up.  Those  behind  them 
at  The  Pimple,  peering  through  the  darkness, 
to  see  if  any  had  survived  the  rush,  saw  figures 
on  the  parados  of  the  enemy's  trench,  and 
wondered  what  was  happening.  They  sent 
forward  the  third  wave,  with  one  full  company 
carrying  picks  and  shovels,  to  make  good  what 


Gal  lip  oil  161 

was  won.  The  men  of  this  third  wave  found 
what  was  happening. 

The  Turkish  front  line  trench  was  not,  like 
most  trenches,  an  open  ditch  into  which  men 
could  jump,  but  covered  over  along  nearly  all 
its  length  with  blinders  and  beams  of  pinewood, 
heaped  with  sandbags,  and  in  some  places  with 
a  couple  of  feet  of  earth.  Under  this  cover 
the  Turks  fired  at  our  men  through  loopholes, 
often  with  their  rifles  touching  their  victims. 
Most  of  the  Australians,  after  heaving  in  vain 
to  get  these  blinders  up,  under  a  fire  that  grew 
hotter  every  instant,  crossed  them,  got  into  the 
open  communication  trenches  in  the  rear  of  the 
Turk  line,  and  attacked  through  them;  but 
some,  working  together,  hove  up  a  blinder  or 
two,  and  down  the  gaps  so  made  those  brave 
men  dropped  themselves,  to  a  bayonet  fight  like 
a  rat  fight  in  a  sewer,  with  an  enemy  whom  they 
could  hardly  see,  in  a  narrow  dark  gash  in  the 
earth  where  they  were,  at  first,  as  one  to  five 
or  seven  to  ten. 

More    and    more    men    dropped    down    or 


162  G all  i poll 

rushed  in  from  the  rear;  the  Turks  so  penned 
in,  fought  hard,  but  could  not  beat  back  the 
attack.  They  surrendered  and  were  disarmed. 
The  survivors  were  at  least  as  many  as  their 
captors,  who  had  too  much  to  do  at  that  time 
to  send  them  to  the  rear,  even  if  there  had  been 
a  safe  road  by  which  to  send  them.  They 
were  jammed  up  there  in  the  trenches  with  the 
Australians,  packed  man  to  man,  suffering  from 
their  friends'  fire  and  getting  in  the  way. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  block  up  the 
communication  trenches  against  the  Turkish 
counter  attack.  Every  man  carried  a  couple  of 
sandbags,  and  with  these,  breastworks  and 
walls  were  built.  Their  work  was  done  in  a 
narrow  dark  sweltering  tunnel,  heaped  with 
corpses  and  wounded  and  crowded  with  prison- 
ers who  might  at  any  moment  have  risen.  Al- 
ready the  Turks  had  begun  their  counter  at- 
tacks. At  every  other  moment  a  little  rush  of 
Turks  came  up  the  communication  trenches, 
flung  their  bombs  in  the  workers'  faces,  and 
were  bayoneted  as  they  threw.  The  trenches 
curved  and  zigzagged  in  the  earth;  the  men  in 


Inside  an  Australian  trench,  showing  a  man  using  a  periscope  rifle 
and  another  man  keeping  watch  by  means  of  a  periscope 


Gallipoli  163 

one  section  could  neither  see  nor  hear  what  the 
men  in  the  nearest  sections  were  doing.  What 
went  on  under  the  ground  there  in  the  making 
good  of  those  trenches  will  never  be  known. 
From  half-past  five  till  midnight  every  section  of 
the  line  was  searched  by  bombs  and  bullets,  by 
stink  pots,  and  sticks  of  dynamite,  by  gas-bombs 
and  a  falling  tumult  of  shell  and  shrapnel, 
which  only  ceased  to  let  some  rush  of  tTurks 
attack,  with  knives,  grenades  and  bayonets, 
hand  to  hand  and  body  to  body  in  a  blackness 
like  the  darkness  of  a  mine.  At  midnight  the 
wounded  were  lying  all  over  the  trenches,  the 
enemy  dead  were  so  thick  that  our  men  had  to 
walk  on  them,  and  bombs  were  falling  in  such 
numbers  that  every  foot  in  those  galleries  was 
stuck  with  human  flesh.  No  man  slept  that 
night.  At  half-past  seven  next  morning  (the 
7th)  a  small  quantity  of  bread  and  tea  was 
rushed  across  the  plateau  to  the  fighters,  who 
had  more  than  earned  their  breakfast.  Turk 
shell  had  by  this  time  blown  up  some  of  the 
head-cover  and  some  of  the  new  communication 
trenches  were  still  only  a  few  feet  deep.     A 


164  Gallipoli 

Colonel  passing  along  one  of  them  told  an 
officer  that  his  section  of  the  trench  was  too 
shallow.  Half-an-hour  later,  in  passing  back, 
he  found  the  officer  and  three  men  blown  to 
pieces  by  a  shell;  in  a  few  minutes  more  he  was 
himself  killed.  At  noon  the  bombing  became 
so  severe  that  some  sections  of  the  line  were 
held  only  by  one  or  two  wounded  men.  At  one 
o'clock  the  enemy  attacked  furiously  with  bomb 
and  bayonet,  in  great  force.  They  came  on  in 
a  mass,  in  wave  after  wave,  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  heads  down,  shouting  the  name  of 
God.  They  rushed  across  the  plateau,  jumped 
into  the  trenches  and  were  mixed  up  with  our 
men  in  a  hand-to-hand  fight,  which  lasted  for 
five  hours.  Not  many  of  them  could  join  in 
the  fight  at  one  time,  and  not  many  of  them 
went  back  to  the  Turk  lines;  but  they  killed 
many  of  our  men,  and  when  their  last  assault 
failed  our  prize  was  very  weakly  held.  At 
half-j^ast  seven  the  survivors  received  a  cheer- 
ing (and  truthful)  message  from  the  Brigadier 
"  that  no  fighters  can  surpass  Australians,"  and 
almost  with  the  message  came  another  Turk 


Galli  poli  165 

assault  begun  by  bomb  and  shell  and  rifle  fire, 
and  followed  by  savage  rushes  with  the  bayonet, 
one  of  which  got  in,  and  did  much  slaughter. 
No  man  slept  that  night;  the  fight  hardly 
slackened  all  through  the  night;  at  dawn  the 
dead  were  lying  three  deep  in  every  part  of  the 
line.  Bombs  fell  every  minute  in  some  section 
of  the  line,  and  where  the  wide  Turk  trenches 
had  been  blasted  open  they  were  very  destruc- 
tive. The  men  were  "  extremely  tired  but  de- 
termined to  hold  on."     They  did  hold  on. 

They  held  on  for  the  next  five  days  and 
nights,  till  Lone  Pine  was  ours  past  question. 
For  those  five  days  and  nights  the  fight  for 
Lone  Pine  was  one  long  personal  scrimmage  in 
the  midst  of  explosion.  For  those  five  days 
and  nights  the  Australians  lived  and  ate  and 
slept  in  that  gallery  of  the  mine  of  death,  in  a 
half  darkness  lit  by  great  glares,  in  filth,  heat 
and  corpses,  among  rotting  and  dying  and  mu- 
tilated men,  with  death  blasting  at  the  doors 
only  a  few  feet  away,  and  intense  and  bloody 
fighting,  hand  to  hand,  with  bombs,  bayonets 
and  knives,   for  hours  together  by  night  and 


1 66  Gallipoli 

day.  When  the  Turks  gave  up  the  struggle 
the  dead  were  five  to  the  yard  in  that  line  or 
works;  they  were  heaped  in  a  kind  of  double 
wall  all  along  the  sides  of  the  trench:  most  of 
them  were  bodies  of  Turks,  but  among  them 
were  one  quarter  of  the  total  force  which  ran 
out  from  The  Pimple  on  the  evening  of  the  6th. 

Like  the  fight  for  the  vineyard  near  Krithia, 
this  fight  for  Lone  Pine  kept  large  numbers 
of  Turks  from  the  vital  part  of  the  battlefield. 

When  the  sun  set  upon  this  battle  at  Lone 
Pine  on  that  first  evening  of  the  6th  of  August, 
many  thousands  of  brave  men  fell  in  for  the 
main  battle,  which  was  to  strew  their  glorious 
bodies  in  the  chasms  of  the  Sari  Bair,  where 
none  but  the  crows  would  ever  find  them.  They 
fell  in  at  the  appointed  places  in  four  columns, 
two  to  guard  the  flanks,  two  to  attack.  One 
attacking  column,  guarded  and  helped  by  the 
column  on  its  right,  was  to  move  up  the  Chailak 
and  Sazli  Beit  Deres,  to  the  storm  of  Chunuk 
Bair,  the  other  attacking  column,  guarded  and 
helped  by  the  column  on  its  left,  was  to  move 
up  the  Aghyl  Dere  to  the  storm  of  Sari's  peak 


Galli  poll  167 

of  Koja  Chemen  Tepe.  The  outermost,  left, 
guarding  column  (though  it  did  not  know  it) 
was  to  link  up  with  the  force  soon  to  land  at 
Suvla. 

They  were  going  upon  a  night  attack  in  a 
country  known  to  be  a  wilderness  with  neither 
water  nor  way  in  it.  They  had  neither  light 
nor  guide,  nor  any  exact  knowledge  of  where 
the  darkness  would  burst  into  a  blaze  from  the 
Turk  fire.  Many  armies  have  gone  out  into 
the  darkness  of  a  night  adventure,  but  what 
army  has  gone  out  like  this,  from  the  hiding 
places  on  a  beach  to  the  heart  of  unknown  hills, 
to  wander  up  crags  under  fire,  to  storm  a  for- 
tress in  the  dawn?  Even  in  Manchuria,  there 
were  roads  and  the  traces  and  the  comforts  of 
man.  In  this  savagery,  there  was  nothing,  but 
the  certainty  of  desolation,  where  the  wounded 
would  lie  until  they  died  and  the  dead  be  never 
buried. 

Until  this  campaign,  the  storm  of  Badajos 
was  the  most  desperate  duty  ever  given  to 
British  soldiers.  The  men  in  the  forlorn  hope 
of  that  storm  marched  to  their  position  to  the 


1 68  Galli  poll 

sound  of  fifes  "  which  filled  the  heart  with  a 
melting  sweetness  "  and  tuned  that  rough  com- 
pany to  a  kind  of  sacred  devotion.  No  music 
played  away  the  brave  men  from  Anzac. 
They  answered  to  their  names  in  the  dark,  and 
moved  off  to  take  position  for  what  they  had 
to  do.  Men  of  many  races  were  banded 
together  there.  There  were  Australians,  Eng- 
lish, Indians,  Maoris  and  New  Zealanders, 
made  one  by  devotion  to  a  cause,  and  all  will- 
ing to  die  that  so  their  comrades  might  see  the 
dawn  make  a  steel  streak  of  the  Hellespont 
from  the  peaked  hill  now  black  against  the 
stars.  Soon  they  had  turned  their  back  on 
friendly  little  Anzac  and  the  lights  in  the  gul- 
lies and  were  stepping  out  with  the  sea  upon 
their  left  and  the  hills  of  their  destiny  upon 
their  right,  and  the  shells,  starlights  and  battle 
of  Lone  Pine  far  away  behind  them.  Before 
9  A.  M.  the  Right  Covering  Column  (of  New 
Zealanders)  was  in  position  ready  to  open  up 
the  Sazli  Beit  and  Chailak  Deres,  to  their 
brothers  who  were  to  storm  Chunuk.     Half  an 


Gal  lip  oli  169 

hour  later,  cunningly  backed  by  the  guns  of  the 
destroyer  Colne,  they  rushed  the  Turk  position, 
routed  the  garrison  and  its  supports,  and  took 
the  fort  known  as  Old  No.  3  Post.  It  was  an 
immensely  strong  position,  protected  by  barbed 
wire,  shielded  by  shell-proof  head  cover,  and 
mined  in  front  "  with  28  mines  electrically  con- 
nected to  a  first-rate  firing  apparatus  within." 
Sed  nisi  Dominus. 

This  success  opened  up  the  Sazli  Dere  for 
nearly  half  of  its  length. 

Inland  from  Old  No.  3  Post,  and  some  700 
yards  from  it  is  a  crag  or  precipice  which  looks 
like  a  round  table,  with  a  top  projecting  beyond 
its  legs.  This  crag,  known  to  our  men  as 
Table  Top,  is  a  hill  which  few  would  climb  for 
pleasure.  Nearly  all  the  last  100  feet  of  the 
peak  is  precipice,  such  as  no  mountaineer  would 
willingly  climb  without  clear  daylight  and  every 
possible  precaution.  It  is  a  sort  of  skull  of 
rock  fallen  down  upon  its  body  of  rock,  and 
the  great  rocky  ribs  heave  out  with  gullies  be- 
tween them.     The  table-top,  or  plateau-summit, 


170  Gallipoli 

was  strongly  entrenched  and  held  by  the  Turks, 
whose  communication  trenches  ran  down  the 
back  of  the  hill  to  Rhododendron  Spur. 

While  their  comrades  were  rushing  Old  No. 
3  Post,  a  party  of  New  Zealanders  marched  to 
storm  this  natural  fortress.  The  muscular 
part  of  the  feat  may  be  likened  to  the  climbing 
of  the  Welsh  Glyddyrs,  the  Irish  Lurig,  or  the 
craggier  parts  of  the  American  Palisades,  in 
a  moonless  midnight,  under  a  load  of  not  less 
than  thirty  pounds.  But  the  muscular  effort 
was  made  much  greater  by  the  roughness  of  the 
unknown  approaches,  which  led  over  glidders 
of  loose  stones  into  the  densest  of  short,  thick, 
intensely  thorny  scrub.  The  New  Zealanders 
advanced  under  fire  through  this  scrub,  went 
up  the  rocks  in  a  spirit  which  no  crag  could 
daunt,  reached  the  Table-top,  rushed  the  Turk 
trenches,  killed  some  Turks  of  the  garrison  and 
captured  the  rest  with  all  their  stores. 

This  success  opened  up  the  remainder  of  the 
Sazli  Beit  Dere. 

While  these  attacks  were  progressing,  the 
remainder    of    the    Right    Covering    Column 


Gallipoli  171 

marched  north  to  the  Chailak  Dere.  A  large 
body  crossed  this  Dere  and  marched  on,  but  the 
rest  turned  up  the  Dere  and  soon  came  to  a 
barbed  wire  entanglement  which  blocked  the 
ravine.  They  had  met  the  Turks'  barbed  wire 
before,  on  Anzac  Day,  and  had  won  through 
it,  but  this  wire  in  the  Dere  was  new  to  their 
experience;  it  was  meant  rather  as  a  permanent 
work  than  as  an  obstruction.  It  was  secured 
to  great  balks  or  blinders  of  pine,  six  or  eight 
feet  high,  which  stood  in  a  rank  twenty  or 
thirty  deep  right  across  the  ravine.  The  wire 
which  crossed  and  criss-crossed  between  these 
balks  was  as  thick  as  a  man's  thumb  and  pro- 
fusely barbed.  Beyond  it  lay  a  flanking  trench, 
held  by  a  strong  outpost  of  Turks,  who  at  once 
opened  fire.  This,  though  not  unexpected,  was 
a  difficult  barrier  to  come  upon  in  the  darkness 
of  a  summer  night,  and  here,  as  before,  at  the 
landing  of  the  Worcester  Regiment  at  W  beach, 
men  went  forward  quietly,  without  weapons,  to 
cut  the  wire  for  the  others.  They  were  shot 
down,  but  others  took  their  places,  though  the 
Turks,  thirty  steps  away  on  the  other  side  of 


172  Gallipoli 

the  gulley,  had  only  to  hold  their  rifles  steady 
and  pull  their  triggers  to  destroy  them.  This 
holding  up  in  the  darkness  by  an  unseen  hidden 
enemy  and  an  obstacle  which  needed  high  ex- 
plosive shell  in  quantity  caused  heavy  loss  and 
great  delay.  For  a  time  there  was  no  getting 
through;  but  then  with  the  most  desperate 
courage  and  devotion,  a  party  of  engineers 
cleared  the  obstacle,  the  Turks  were  routed, 
and  a  path  made  for  the  attackers. 

This  success  opened  up  the  mouth  of  the 
Chailak  Dere. 

Meanwhile  those  who  had  marched  across 
this  Dere  and  gone  on  towards  Suvla,  swung 
round  to  the  right  to  clear  the  Turks  from 
Bauchop's  Hill,  which  overlooks  the  Chailak 
Dere  from  the  north.  Bauchop's  Hill  (a 
rough  country  even  for  Gallipoli)  is  cleft  by 
not  less  than  twenty  great  gullies,  most  of  them 
forked,  precipitous,  overgrown  and  heaped  with 
rocks.  The  New  Zealanders  scrambled  up  it 
from  the  north,  got  into  a  maze  of  trenches, 
not  strongly  held,  beat  the  Turks  out  of  them, 
wandered  south  across  the  neck  or  ridge  of  the 


Gallipoli  173 

hill,  discovering  Turk  trenches  by  their  fire,  and 
at  last  secured  the  whole  hill. 

This  success,  besides  securing  the  Chailak 
Dere  from  any  assault  from  the  north,  secured 
the  south  flank  of  the  Aghyl  Dere  beyond  it. 

Meanwhile  the  Left  Covering  Column 
(mainly  Welshmen)  which  for  some  time  had 
halted  at  Old  No.  3  Post,  waiting  for  the 
sound  of  battle  to  tell  them  that  the  Turks  on 
Bauchop's  Hill  were  engaged,  marched  boldly 
on  the  Aghyl  Dere,  crossed  it  in  a  rush,  taking 
every  Turk  trench  in  the  way,  then  stormed  the 
Turk  outpost  on  Damakjelik  Bair,  going  on 
from  trench  to  trench  in  the  dark  guided  by  the 
flashes  of  the  rifles,  till  the  whole  hill  was  theirs. 
This  success  opened  up  the  Aghyl  Dere  to  the 
attacking  column. 

As  ihc  troops  drew  their  breath  in  the  still 
night  on  the  little  hill  which  they  had  won,  they 
heard  about  three  miles  away  a  noise  of  battle 
on  the  seacoast  to  their  left.  This  noise  was 
not  the  nightly  "  hate  "  of  the  monitors  and 
destroyers  but  an  irregular  and  growing  rifle 
fire.     This,  though  they  did  not  know  it,  was 


174  Galli  poll 

the  beginning  of  the  landing  of  the  new  Divi- 
sions, with  their  30,000  men,  at  Suvla  Bay. 

For  the  moment,  Suvla  was  not  the  important 
point  in  the  battle.  The  three  Deres  were  the 
important  points,  for  up  the  three  Deres,  now 
cleared  of  Turks,  our  Attacking  Columns  were 
advancing  to  the  assault. 

By  this  time  however,  the  Turks  were  roused 
throughout  their  line.  All  the  Anzac  position 
from  Tasmania  Post  to  Table  Top  was  a  blaze 
of  battle  to  contain  them  before  our  trenches, 
but  they  knew  now  that  their  right  was  threat- 
ened and  their  reserves  were  hurrying  out  to 
meet  us  before  we  had  gained  the  crests.  Our 
Right  Attacking  Column  (of  English  and  New 
Zealand  troops)  went  up  the  Sazli  Beit  and 
Chailak  Deres,  deployed  beyond  Table  Top 
and  stormed  Rhododendron  Spur,  fighting  for 
their  lives  every  inch  of  the  way.  The  Left 
Column  (mainly  Indians  and  Australians) 
pressed  up  the  Aghyl,  into  the  stony  clefts  of 
its  upper  forks,  and  so,  by  rock,  jungle,  heart- 
breaking cliff  and  fissure  to  the  attack  of  Hill 
Q,  and  the  lower  slopes  of  Sari.     They,  too, 


Gallipoli  175 

were  fighting  for  their  lives.  Their  advance 
was  across  a  scrub  peopled  now  by  little  clumps 
of  marksmen  firing  from  hiding.  When  they 
deployed  out  of  the  Deres,  to  take  up  their 
line  of  battle,  they  linked  up  with  the  Right 
Assaulting  Column,  and  formed  with  them  a 
front  of  about  a  mile,  stretching  from  the  old 
Anzac  position  to  within  a  mile  of  the  crests 
which  were  the  prize.  By  this  time  the  night 
was  over,  day  was  breaking,  the  Turks  were 
in  force,  and  our  attacking  columns  much  ex- 
hausted, but  there  was  still  breath  for  a  last 
effort.  Now,  with  the  breath,  came  a  quick 
encouragement,  for  looking  down  from  their 
hillsides  they  could  see  Suvla  Bay  full  of  ships, 
the  moving  marks  of  boats,  dotted  specks  of 
men  on  the  sandhills,  and  more  ships  on  the 
sea  marching  like  chariots  to  the  cannon.  In 
a  flash,  as  happens  when  many  minds  are  tense 
together,  they  realised  the  truth.  A  new  land- 
ing was  being  made.  All  along  the  coast  by 
the  Bay  the  crackle  and  the  flash  of  firing  was 
moving  from  the  sea,  to  shew  them  that  the 
landing  was  made  good,  and  that  the  Turks 


176  Gallipoli 

were  falling  back.  Hardening  their  hearts  at 
this  sight  of  help  coming  from  the  sea  the  Aus- 
tralians and  Sikhs  with  the  last  of  their  strength 
went  at  Koja  Chemen  Tepe,  and  the  New  Zea- 
landers  upon  their  right  rose  to  the  storm  of 
Chunuk. 

It  was  not  to  be.  The  guns  behind  them 
backed  them.  They  did  what  mortal  men 
could  do,  but  they  were  worn  out  by  the  night's 
advance,  they  could  not  carry  the  two  summits. 
They  tried  a  second  time  to  carry  Chunuk;  but 
they  were  too  weary  and  the  Turks  in  too  great 
strength;  they  could  not  get  to  the  top.  But 
they  held  to  what  they  had  won ;  they  entrenched 
themselves  on  the  new  line,  and  there  they 
stayed,  making  ready  for  the  next  attack. 

Two  or  three  have  said  to  me:  u  They 
ought  not  to  have  been  exhausted;  none  of  them 
had  marched  five  miles."  It  is  difficult  to 
answer  such  critics  patiently,  doubly  difficult  to 
persuade  them,  without  showing  them  the  five 
miles.  There  comes  into  my  mind,  as  I  write, 
the  image  of  some  hills  in  the  west  of  Ireland, 
a  graceful  and  austere  range,  not  difficult  to 


Gallipoli  177 

climb,  seemingly,  and  not  unlike  these  Gallipoli 
hills,  in  their  look  of  lying  down  at  rest.  The 
way  to  those  hills  is  over  some  miles  of  scat- 
tered limestone  blocks,  with  gaps  between  them 
full  of  scrub,  gorse,  heather,  dwarf-ash  and 
little  hill-thorn,  and  the  traveller  proceeds,  as 
the  Devil  went  through  Athlone,  "  in  standing 
lepps."  This  journey  to  the  hills  is  the  likest 
journey  (known  to  me)  to  that  of  the  assault- 
ing columns.  Like  the  Devil  in  Athlone  the 
assaulting  columns  had  often  to  advance  "  in 
standing  lepps,"  but  to  them  the  standing  lepp 
came  as  a  solace,  a  rare,  strange  and  blessed 
respite,  from  forcing  through  scrub  by  main 
strength,  or  scaling  a  crag  of  rotten  sandstone, 
in  pitch  darkness,  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy. 
For  an  armed  force  to  advance  a  mile  an  hour 
by  day  over  such  a  country  is  not  only  good 
going,  but  a  great  achievement;  to  advance  four 
miles  in  a  night  over  such  a  country,  fighting 
literally  all  the  way,  often  hand  to  hand,  and 
to  feel  the  enemy's  resistance  stiffening  and  his 
reserves  arriving,  as  the  strength  fails  and  the 
ascent  steepens,  and  yet  to  make  an  effort  at 


178  Galli  poli 

the  end,  is  a  thing  unknown  in  the  history  of 
war.  And  this  first  fourteen  hours  of  exhaust- 
ing physical  labour  was  but  the  beginning. 
The  troops,  as  they  very  well  knew,  were  to 
have  two  or  three  days  more  of  the  same  toil 
before  the  battle  could  be  ended,  one  way  or 
the  other.  So  after  struggling  for  fourteen 
hours  with  every  muscle  in  their  bodies,  over 
crags  and  down  gullies  in  the  never-ceasing 
peril  of  death,  they  halted  in  the  blaze  of  noon 
and  drew  their  breath.  In  the  evening,  as  they 
hoped,  the  men  from  Suvla  would  join  hands 
and  go  on  to  victory  with  them;  they  had  fought 
the  first  stage  of  the  battle,  the  next  stage  was 
to  be  decisive. 

The  heat  of  this  noon  of  August  7th  on 
those  sandy  hills  was  a  scarcely  bearable  tor- 
ment. 

Meanwhile,  at  Suvla,  the  left  of  the  battle, 
the  nth  Division,  had  landed  in  the  pitch-dark- 
ness, by  wading  ashore,  in  five  feet  of  water, 
under  rifle  fire,  on  to  beaches  prepared  with 
land   mines.     The   first   boat-loads    lost   many 


Gallipoli  179 

men  from  the  mines  and  from  the  fire  of  snipers, 
who  came  right  down  to  the  beach  in  the  dark- 
ness and  fired  from  the  midst  of  our  men. 
These  snipers  were  soon  bayoneted,  our  men 
formed  for  the  assault  in  the  dark  and  stormed 
the  Turk  outpost  on  Lala  Baba  there  and  then. 
While  Lala  Baba  was  being  cleared  other  bat- 
talions moved  north  to  clear  the  Turk  from 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  beach  on  that  side. 
The  ground  over  which  they  had  to  move  is  a 
sand-dune-land,  covered  with  gorse  and  other 
scrub,  most  difficult  to  advance  across  in  a  wide 
extension.  About  half  a  mile  from  the  beach 
the  ground  rises  in  a  roll  of  whale-back,  known 
on  the  battle  plans  as  Hill  10.  This  hill  is 
about  three  hundred  yards  long  and  thirty  feet 
high.  At  this  whale-back  (which  was  en- 
trenched) the  Turks  rallied  on  their  supports; 
they  had,  perhaps,  a  couple  of  thousand  men 
and  (some  say)  a  gun  or  two,  and  the  dawn 
broke  before  they  could  be  rushed.  Their  first 
shells  upon  our  men  set  fire  to  the  gorse,  so 
that  our  advance  against  them  was  through  a 
blazing  common  in  which  many  men  who  fell 


180  Gallipoli 

wounded  were  burnt  to  death  or  suffocated. 
The  Turks,  seeing  the  difficulties  of  the  men 
in  the  fire,  charged  with  the  bayonet,  but  were 
themselves  charged  and  driven  back  in  great 
disorder;  the  fire  spread  to  their  hill  and 
burned  them  out  of  it.  Our  men  then  began  to 
drive  the  Turks  away  from  the  high  ridges  to 
the  north  of  Suvla.  The  ioth  Division  began 
to  land  while  this  fight  was  still  in  progress. 
This  early  fighting  had  won  for  us  a  landing- 
place  at  Suvla  and  had  cleared  the  ground  to 
the  north  of  the  bay  for  the  deployment  for  the 
next  attack.  This  was  to  be  a  swinging  round 
of  two  Brigades  to  the  storm  of  the  hills  di- 
rectly to  the  east  of  the  Salt  Lake.  Jhese  hills 
are  the  island-like  double-peaked  Chocolate 
Hill  (close  to  the  lake)  and  the  much  higher 
and  more  important  hills  of  Scimitar  Hill  (or 
Hill  70)  and  Ismail  Oglu  Tepe  (Hill  100) 
behind  it.  The  Brigade  chosen  for  this  attack 
were  the  31st  (consisting  of  Irish  Regiments) 
belonging  to  the  ioth  Division,  and  the  32nd 
(consisting  of  Yorkshire  and  North  of  Eng- 
land Regiments)   belonging  to  the   nth  Divi- 


Gallipoli  1 8 1 

sion.  The  32nd  had  been  hotly  engaged  since 
the  very  early  morning,  the  31st  were  only  just 
on  shore.  The  storm  was  to  be  pushed  from 
the  north,  and  would,  if  successful,  clear  the 
way  for  the  final  thrust,  the  storm  of  Koja- 
Chemen  Tepe  from  the  northwest. 

This  thrust  from  Suvla  against  Koja  Chemen 
was  designed  to  complete  and  make  decisive  the 
thrust  already  begun  by  the  Right  and  Left  At- 
tacking Columns.  The  attack  on  Chocolate 
Hill,  Scimitar  Hill  and  Ismail  Oglu  was  to 
make  that  thrust  possible  by  destroying  forever 
the  power  of  the  Turk  to  parry  it.  The  Turk 
could  only  parry  it  by  firing  from  those  hills 
on  the  men  making  it.  It  was  therefore  neces- 
sary to  seize  those  hills  before  the  Turk  could 
stop  us.  If  the  Turks  seized  those  hills  be- 
fore us,  or  stopped  us  from  seizing  them,  our 
troops  could  not  march  from  Suvla  to  take  part 
in  the  storm  of  Koja  Chemen.  If  we  seized 
them  before  the  Turks,  then  the  Turks  could 
not  stop  us  from  crossing  the  valley  to  that 
storm.  The  first  problem  at  Suvla  therefore 
was  not  so  much  to  win  a  battle  as  to  win  a 


1 82  Gallipoli 

race  with  the  Turks  for  the  possession  of  those 
hills;  the  winning  of  the  battle  could  be  ar- 
ranged later.  Our  failure  to  win  that  race 
brought  with  it  our  loss  of  the  battle.  The 
next  chapter  in  the  story  of  the  battle  is  simply 
a  description  of  the  losing  of  a  race  by  loss  of 
time. 

Now  the  giving  of  praise  or  blame  is  always 
easy,  but  the  understanding  of  anything  is  diffi- 
cult. The  understanding  of  anything  so  vast, 
so  confused,  so  full  of  contradiction,  so  depend- 
ent on  little  things  (themselves  changing  from 
minute  to  minute,  the  coward  of  a  moment  ago 
blazing  out  into  a  hero  at  the  next  turn)  as  a 
modern  battle  is  more  than  difficult.  But 
some  attempt  must  be  made  to  understand  how 
it  came  about  that  time  was  lost  at  Suvla,  be- 
tween the  landing,  at  midnight  on  the  6th— 7th 
August,  and  the  arrival  of  the  Turks  upon  the 
hills,  at  midnight  on  the  8th— 9th. 

In  the  first  place  it  should  be  said  that  the 
beaches  of  Suvla  are  not  the  beaches  of  sea- 
side resorts,  all  pleasant  smooth  sand  and 
shingle.     They  are  called  beaches  because  they 


Gallipoli  183 

cannot  well  be  called  cliffs.  They  slope  into 
the  sea  with  some  abruptness,  in  pentes  of  rock 
and  tumbles  of  sand-dune  difficult  to  land  upon 
from  boats.  From  them,  one  climbs  onto  sand- 
dune,  into  a  sand-dune  land,  which  is  like  noth- 
ing so  much  as  a  sea-marsh  from  which  the 
water  has  receded.  Walking  on  this  soft  sand 
is  difficult,  it  is  like  walking  in  feathers;  work- 
ing, hauling  and  carrying  upon  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult. Upon  this  coast  and  country,  roadless, 
wharfless,  beachless  and  unimproved,  nearly 
30,000  men  landed  in  the  first  ten  hours  of 
August  7th.  At  10  A.  M.,  on  that  day,  when 
the  sun  was  in  his  stride,  the  difficulty  of  those 
beaches  began  to  tell  on  those  upon  them. 
There  had  been  sharp  fighting  on  and  near  the 
beaches,  and  shells  were  still  falling  here  and 
there  in  all  the  ground  which  we  had  won. 
On  and  near  the  beaches  there  was  a  congestion 
of  a  very  hindering  kind.  With  men  coming 
ashore,  shells  bursting  among  them,  mules 
landing,  biting,  kicking,  shying  and  stamped- 
ing, guns  limbering  up  and  trying  to  get  out 
into  position,  more  men  coming  ashore  or  seek- 


184  Gallipoli 

ing  for  the  rest  of  their  battalion  in  a  crowd 
where  all  battalions  looked  alike,  shouts,  or- 
ders and  counter-orders,  ammunition  boxes  be- 
ing passed  along,  water  carts  and  transport  be- 
ing started  for  the  firing  line,  wounded  coming 
down  or  being  helped  down,  or  being  loaded 
into  lighters,  doctors  trying  to  clear  the  way  for 
field  dressing  stations,  with  every  now  and  then 
a  shell  from  Ismail  sending  the  sand  in  clouds 
over  corpses,  wounded  men  and  fatigue  parties, 
and  a  blinding  August  sun  over  all  to  exhaust 
and  to  madden,  it  was  not  possible  to  avoid  con- 
gestion. This  congestion  was  the  first,  but  not 
the  most  fatal  cause  of  the  loss  of  time. 

Though  the  congestion  was  an  evil  in  itself, 
its  first  evil  effect  was  that  it  made  it  impossi- 
ble to  pass  orders  quickly  from  one  part  of  the 
beach  to  another.  In  this  first  matter  of  the 
attack  on  the  hills,  the  way  had  been  opened  for 
the  assault  by  10  A.  M.  at  the  latest  but  to  get 
through  the  confusion  along  the  beaches 
(among  battalions  landing,  forming  and  defil- 
ing, and  the  waste  of  wounded  momently  in- 
creasing)   to  arrange   for  the  assault  and  to 


Gallipoli  185 

pass  the  orders  to  the  battalions  named  for  the 
duty,  took  a  great  deal  of  time.  It  was  nearly 
1  P.  M.  when  the  31st  moved  north  from  Lala 
Baba  on  their  march  round  the  head  of  the  Salt 
Lake  into  position  for  the  attack.  The  32nd 
Brigade,  having  fought  since  dawn  at  Hill  10, 
was  already  to  the  north  of  the  Salt  Lake,  but 
when  (at  about  3  P.  M.)  the  31st  took  position, 
facing  southeast,  with  its  right  on  the  north- 
east corner  of  the  Salt  Lake,  the  32nd  was  not 
upon  its  left  ready  to  advance  with  it.  In- 
stead of  that  guard  upon  its  left  the  31st  found 
a  vigorous  attack  of  Turks.  More  time  was 
lost,  waiting  for  support  to  reach  the  left,  and 
before  it  arrived,  word  $ame  that  the  attack 
upon  the  hills  was  to  be  postponed  till  after 
5  P.  M.  Seeing  the  danger  of  delay  and  that 
Chocolate  Hill  at  least  should  be  seized  at 
once,  the  Brigadier  General  (Hill)  telephoned 
for  supports  and  covering  fire,  held  off  the  at- 
tack on  his  left  with  one  battalion,  and  with  the 
rest  of  his  Brigade  started  at  once  to  take 
Chocolate  Hill,  cost  what  it  might.  The  men 
went  forward  and  stormed  Chocolate  Hill,  the 


1 86  Gallipoli 

7th  Royal  Dublin  Fusiliers  bearing  the  brunt  of 
the  storm. 

At  some  not  specified  time,  perhaps  after  this 
storm,  in  a  general  retirement  of  the  Turks, 
Hill  70,  or  Scimitar  Hill,  was  abandoned  to  us, 
and  occupied  by  an  English  battalion. 

During  all  this  day  of  the  7th  of  August  all 
our  men  suffered  acutely  from  the  great  heat 
and  from  thirst.  Several  men  went  raving 
mad  from  thirst,  others  assaulted  the  water 
guards,  pierced  the  supply  hoses,  or  swam  to 
the  lighters  to  beg  for  water.  Thirst  in  great 
heat  is  a  cruel  pain,  and  this  (afflicting  some 
regiments  more  than  others)  demoralised  some 
and  exhausted  all.  Efforts  were  made  to  send 
up  and  to  find  water;  but  the  distribution  sys- 
tem, beginning  on  a  cluttered  beach  and  end- 
ing in  a  rough,  unknown  country  full  of  con- 
fused fighting  and  firing,  without  anything  like 
a  road,  and  much  of  it  blazing  or  smouldering 
from  the  scrub  fires,  broke  down,  and  most  of 
the  local  wells,  when  discovered,  were  filled 
with  corpses  put  there  by  the  Turk  garrison. 
Some    unpolluted   wells    of   drinkable,  though 


Galli  poli  187 

brackish  water,  were  found,  but  most  of  these 
were  guarded  by  snipers,  who  shot  at  men  go- 
ing to  them.  Many  men  were  killed  thus  and 
many  more  wounded,  for  the  Turk  snipers  were 
good  shots,  cleverly  hidden. 

All  through  the  day  in  the  Suvla  area,  thirst, 
due  to  the  great  heat,  was  another  cause  of  loss 
of  time  in  the  fulfilment  of  that  part  of  the 
tactical  scheme;  but  it  was  not  the  final  and 
fatal  cause. 

Chocolate  Hill  was  taken  by  our  men  (now 
utterly  exhausted  by  thirst  and  heat)  just  as 
darkness  fell.  They  were  unable  to  go  on 
against  Ismail  Oglu  Tepe.  They  made  their 
dispositions  for  the  night  on  the  line  they  had 
won,  sent  back  to  the  beaches  for  ammuni- 
tion, food  and  water,  and  tried  to  forget  their 
thirst.  They  were  in  bad  case,  and  still  two 
miles  from  the  Australians  below  Koja  Chemen 
Tepe.  Very  late  that  night  word  reached  them 
that  the  Turks  were  massed  in  a  gulley  to  their 
front,  that  no  other  enemy  reserves  were  any- 
where visible,  and  that  the  Turks  had  with- 
drawn their  guns,  fearing  that  they  would  be 


1 88  Gallipoli 

taken  next  morning.  Before  dawn  on  the  all- 
important  day  of  the  8th  August,  our  men  at 
Suvla  after  a  night  of  thirst  and  sniping,  stood 
to  arms  to  help  out  the  vital  thrust  of  the 
battle. 

Had  time  not  been  lost  on  the  7th,  their  task 
on  the  8th  would  have  been  to  cross  the  valley 
at  dawn,  join  the  Australians  and  go  with  them 
up  the  spurs  to  victory,  in  a  strength  which  the 
Turks  could  not  oppose.  At  dawn  on  the  8th 
their  path  to  the  valley  was  still  barred  by  the 
uncaptured  Turk  fort  on  Ismail;  time  had  been 
lost;  there  could  be  no  crossing  the  valley  till 
Ismail  was  taken.  There  was  still  time  to  take 
it  and  cross  the  valley  to  the  storm,  but  the 
sands  were  falling.  Up  on  Chunuk  already 
the  battle  had  begun  without  them;  no  time  was 
lost  on  Chunuk. 

Up  on  Chunuk  at  that  moment  a  very  bitter 
battle  was  being  fought.  On  the  right,  on 
Chunuk  itself,  the  Gloucester  and  New  Zea- 
land Regiments  were  storming  the  hill,  in  the 
centre  and  on  the  left  the  Australians,  English, 
and  Indians  were  trying  for  Hill  Q  and  the 


Gallipoli  189 

south  of  Koja  Chemen.  They  had  passed  the 
night  on  the  hillsides  under  a  never-ceasing  fire 
of  shells  and  bullets,  now,  before  dawn,  they 
were  making  a  terrible  attempt.  Those  on 
Chunuk  went  up  with  a  rush,  pelted  from  in 
front  and  from  both  flanks  by  every  engine  of 
death.  The  Gloucesters  were  on  the  left  and 
the  New  Zealanders  on  the  right  in  this  great 
assault.  They  deployed  past  The  Farm  and 
then  went  on  to  the  storm  of  a  hill  which  rises 
some  four  hundred  feet  in  as  many  yards. 
They  were  on  the  top  by  dawn;  Chunuk  Bair, 
the  last  step,  but  one,  to  victory,  was  ours  and 
remained  ours  all  day,  but  at  a  cost  which  few 
successful  attacks  have  ever  known.  By  four 
o'clock  that  afternoon  the  New  Zealanders  had 
dwindled  to  three  officers  and  fifty  men,  and 
the  Gloucester  battalion,  having  lost  every  offi- 
cer and  senior  non-commissioned  officer,  was 
fighting  under  section-leaders  and  privates. 
Still,  their  attack  had  succeeded;  they  were  con- 
querors. In  the  centre  the  attack  on  Hill  Q 
was  less  successful.  There  the  English  and 
Indian    regiments,    assaulting    together,    were 


190  Galli  poli 

held;  the  Turks  were  too  strong.  Our  men 
got  up  to  the  top  of  the  lower  spurs,  and  there 
had  to  lie  down  and  scrape  cover,  for  there  was 
no  going  further.  On  the  left  of  our  attack  the 
Australians  tried  to  storm  the  Abd-el-Rahman 
Bair  from  the  big  gulley  of  Asma  Dere.  They 
went  up  in  the  dark  with  Australian  dash  to  a 
venture  pretty  desperate  even  for  Gallipoli. 
The  Turks  held  the  high  ground  on  both  sides 
of  the  Asma  gulley,  and  were  there  in  great 
force  with  many  machine  guns.  The  Austral- 
ians were  enfiladed,  held  in  front,  and  taken  in 
reverse,  and  (as  soon  as  it  was  light  enough 
for  the  Turks  to  see)  they  suffered  heavily. 
As  one  of  the  Australians  has  described  it: 
"The  14th  and  15th  Battalions  moved  out  in 
single  file  and  deployed  to  the  storm  and  an 
advance  was  made  under  heavy  rifle  and  ma- 
chine gun  fire.  After  the  15th  Battalion  had 
practically  withered  away,  the  14th  continued 
to  advance,  suffering  heavily,  and  the  Turks  in 
great  force.  As  we  drove  them  back,  they 
counter    attacked,    several    times.     The    Bat- 


Gallipoli  191 

talion  thus  got  very  split  up  and  it  is  impossible 
to  say  exactly  what  happened." 

It  is  now  possible  to  say  exactly  that  that 
14th  Battalion  fought  like  heroes  in  little  bands 
of  wounded  and  weary  men,  and  at  last,  with 
great  reluctance,  on  repeated  orders,  fell  back 
to  the  Asma  Dere  from  which  they  had  come, 
beating  off  enemy  attacks  all  the  way  down  the 
hill,  and  then  held  on,  against  all  that  the  Turk 
could  do. 

By  noon,  this  assault,  which  would  have  been 
decisive  had  the  men  from  Suvla  been  engaged 
with  the  Australians,  was  at  an  end.  Its  right 
had  won  Chunuk,  and  could  just  hold  on  to 
what  it  had  won,  its  centre  was  held,  and  its 
left  driven  back.  The  fire  upon  all  parts  of 
the  line  was  terrific;  our  men  were  lying  (for 
the  most  part)  in  scratchings  of  cover,  for  they 
could  not  entrench  under  fire  so  terrible.  Often 
in  that  rough  and  tumble  country,  the  snipers 
and  bombers  of  both  sides,  were  within  a  few 
yards  of  each  other,  and  in  the  roar  and  blast 
of  the  great  battle  were  countless  little  battles, 


192  Gallipoli 

or  duels  to  the  death,  which  made  the  ground 
red  and  set  the  heather  on  fire.  Half  of  the 
hills  of  that  accursed  battlefield,  too  false  of 
soil  to  be  called  crags  and  too  savage  with 
desolation  to  be  called  hills,  such  as  feed  the 
sheep  and  bees  of  England,  were  blazing  in 
sweeps  of  flame,  which  cast  up  smoke  to  heaven, 
and  swept  in  great  swathes  across  the  gullies. 
Shells  from  our  ships  were  screaming  and  burst- 
ing among  all  that  devil's  playground;  it  was  an 
anxious  time  for  the  Turks.  Many  a  time 
throughout  that  day  the  Turkish  officers  must 
have  looked  down  anxiously  upon  the  Suvla 
plain  to  see  if  our  men  there  were  masters  of 
Ismail  and  on  the  way  to  Koja  Chemen.  For 
the  moment,  as  they  saw,  we  were  held;  but  not 
more  than  held.  With  a  push  from  Suvla  to 
help  us,  we  could  not  be  held.  Our  men  on  the 
hills,  expecting  that  helping  push,  drew  breath 
for  a  new  assault. 

It  was  now  noon.  The  battle  so  far  was  in 
our  favour.  We  had  won  ground,  some  of  it 
an  all-important  ground,  and  for  once  we  had 
the  Turks  with  their  backs  against  the  wall  and 


Gallipoli  193 

short  of  men.  At  Helles  they  were  pressed,  at 
Lone  Pine  they  were  threatened  at  the  heart, 
under  Koja  Chemen  the  knife  point  was  touch- 
ing the  heart,  and  at  Suvla  was  the  new  strength 
to  drive  the  knife  point  home  and  begin  the 
end  of  the  war.  And  the  Turks  could  not  stop 
that  new  strength.  Their  nearest  important 
reserve  of  men  was  at  Eski  Kevi,  ten  miles  away 
by  a  road  which  could  scarcely  be  called  a  goat 
track,  and  these  reserves  had  been  called  on 
for  the  fight  at  Krithia,  and  still  more  for  the 
two  days  of  struggle  at  Lone  Pine.  All 
through  that  day  of  the  eighth  of  August  Fate 
waited  to  see  what  would  happen  between  Suvla 
and  Koja  Chemen.  She  fingered  with  her  dice 
uncertain  which  side  to  favour;  she  waited  to 
be  courted  by  the  one  who  wanted  her.  Eight 
hours  of  daylight  had  gone  by,  but  there  was 
still  no  moving  forward  from  Suvla,  to  seize 
Ismail  and  pass  from  it  across  the  valley  to  the 
storm.  Noon  passed  into  the  afternoon,  but 
there  was  still  no  movement.  Four  hours 
more  went  by,  and  now  our  aeroplanes  brought 
word  that  the  Turks  near  Suvla  were  moving 


194  Gallipoli 

back  their  guns  by  ox-teams,  and  that  their  foot 
were  on  the  march,  coming  along  their  break- 
neck road,  making  perhaps  a  mile  an  hour,  but 
marching  and  drawing  steadily  nearer  to  the 
threatened  point.  The  living  act  of  the  battle 
was  due  at  Ismail:  from  Ismail  the  last  act,  the 
toppling  down  of  the  Turk  forever  among  the 
bones  of  his  victims  and  the  ruin  of  his  ally, 
would  have  been  prepared  and  assured.  There 
was  a  desultory  fire  around  Ismail,  and  the 
smoke  of  scrub  fires  which  blazed  and  smoul- 
dered everywhere  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see, 
but  no  roar  and  blaze  and  outcry  of  a  meant 
attack.  The  battle  hung  fire  on  the  left,  the 
hours  were  passing,  the  Turks  were  coming. 
It  was  only  five  o'clock  still;  we  had  still  seven 
hours  or  more.  In  the  centre  we  had  almost 
succeeded.  We  could  hang  on  there  and  try 
again,  there  was  still  time.  The  chance  which 
had  been  plainly  ours,  was  still  an  even  chance. 
It  was  for  the  left  to  seize  it  for  us,  the  battle 
waited  for  the  left,  the  poor,  dying  Gloucesters 
and  Wellingtons  hung  on  to  Chunuk  for  it,  the 
Gurkhas   and   English   in   the   trampled   corn- 


Gallipoli  195 

fields  near  The  Farm  died  where  they  lay  on 
the  chance  of  it,  the  Australians  on  Abd-el- 
Rahman  held  steady  in  the  hope  of  it,  under 
a  fire  that  filled  the  air. 

If,  as  men  say,  the  souls  of  a  race,  all  the 
company  of  a  nation's  dead,  rally  to  the  liv- 
ing of  their  people  in  a  time  of  storm,  those 
fields  of  hell  below  Koja  Chemen,  won  by  the 
sweat  and  blood  and  dying  agony  of  our  thou- 
sands, must  have  answered  with  a  ghostly 
muster  of  English  souls  in  the  afternoon  of  that 
eighth  of  August.  There  was  the  storm,  there 
was  the  crisis,  the  one  picked  hour,  to  which 
this  death  and  mangling  and  dying  misery  and 
exultation  had  led.  Then  was  the  hour  for  a 
casting  off  of  self,  and  a  setting  aside  of  every 
pain  and  longing  and  sweet  affection,  a  giving 
up  of  all  that  makes  a  man  to  be  something 
which  makes  a  race,  and  a  going  forward  to 
death  resolvedly  to  help  out  their  brothers  high 
up  above  in  the  shell  bursts  and  the  blazing 
gorse.  Surely  all  through  the  eighth  of  August 
our  unseen  dead  were  on  that  field,  blowing  the 
horn  of  Roland,  the  unheard,  unheeded  horn, 


196  Gallipoli 

the  horn  of  heroes  in  the  dolorous  pass,  asking 
for  the  little  that  heroes  ask,  but  asking  in  vain. 
If  ever  the  great  of  England  cried  from  be- 
yond death  to  the  living  they  cried  then.  "  De 
qo  qui  calt.     Demuret  i  unt  trop." 

All  through  the  morning  of  that  day,  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  on  watch  at  his  central 
station,  had  waited  with  growing  anxiety  for  the 
advance  from  the  Suvla  Beaches.  Till  the  aft- 
ernoon the  critical  thrust  on  Chunuk  and  the 
great  Turk  pressure  at  Lone  Pine  made  it  im- 
possible for  him  to  leave  his  post  to  intervene, 
but,  in  the  afternoon,  seeing  that  neither  wire- 
less nor  telephone  messages  could  take  the 
place  of  personal  vision  and  appeal,  he  took 
the  risk  of  cutting  himself  adrift  from  the  main 
conflict,  hurried  to  Suvla,  landed,  and  found 
the  great  battle  of  the  war,  that  should  have 
brought  peace  to  all  that  Eastern  world,  being 
lost  by  minutes  before  his  eyes. 

Only  one  question  mattered  then:  "  Was 
there  still  time?  "  Had  the  Turks  made  good 
their  march  and  crowned  those  hills,  or  could 
our  men  forestall  them?     It  was  now  doubt- 


GalUpoli  197 

ful,  but  the  point  was  vital,  not  only  to  the 
battle,  but  to  half  the  world  in  travail.  It  had 
to  be  put  to  the  test.  A  hundred  years  ago, 
perhaps  even  fifty  years  ago,  all  could  have 
been  saved.  Often  in  those  old  days,  a  Com- 
mander-in-Chief could  pull  a  battle  out  of  the 
fire  and  bring  halted  or  broken  troops  to  vic- 
tory. Then,  by  waving  a  sword,  and  shouting 
a  personal  appeal,  the  resolute  soul  could  pluck 
the  hearts  of  his  men  forward  in  a  rush  that 
nothing  could  stem.  So  Wolfe  took  Quebec,  so 
Desaix  won  Marengo,  so  Bonaparte  swept  the 
bridge  at  Lodi  and  won  at  Areola;  so  Caesar 
overcame  the  Nervii  in  the  terrible  day,  and 
wrecked  the  Republic  at  Pharsalia.  So  Sher- 
man held  the  landing  at  Shiloh  and  Farragut 
pitted  his  iron  heart  against  iron  ships  at  Fort 
Jackson.  So  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  himself  snatched 
victory  from  the  hesitation  at  Elandslaagte. 
Then  the  individual's  will  could  take  instant 
effect,  but  then  the  individual's  front  was  not  a 
five  mile  front  of  wilderness,  the  men  were  un- 
der his  hand,  within  sight  and  sound  of  him 
and  not  committed  by  order  to  another  tactical 


198  Galli  poli 

project.  There,  at  Suvla,  there  was  no  chance 
for  these  heroic  methods.  Suvla  was  the  mod- 
ern battle  field,  where  nothing  can  be  done 
quickly  except  the  firing  of  a  machine  gun.  On 
the  modern  field,  especially  on  such  a  field  as 
Suvla,  where  the  troops  were  scattered  in  the 
wilderness,  it  may  take  several  hours  for  an 
order  to  pass  from  one  wing  to  the  other.  In 
this  case  it  was  not  an  order  that  was  to  pass, 
but  a  counter-order;  the  order  had  already 
gone,  for  an  attack  at  dawn  on  the  morrow. 

All  soldiers  seem  agreed,  that  even  with 
authority  to  back  it,  a  counter-order,  on  a  mod- 
ern battlefield,  to  urge  forward  halted  troops, 
takes  time  to  execute.  Sir  Ian  Hamilton's  de- 
termination to  seize  those  hills  could  not  spare 
the  time;  too  much  time  had  already  gone.  He 
ordered  an  advance  at  all  costs  with  whatever 
troops  were  not  scattered,  but  only  four  bat- 
talions could  be  found  in  any  way  ready  to 
move.  It  was  now  5  P.  M. :  there  were  perhaps 
three  more  hours  of  light.  The  four  battal- 
ions were  ordered  to  advance  at  once  to  make 
good  what  they  could  of  the  hills  fronting  the 


Galllpoli  199 

bay  before  the  Turks  forestalled  them.  At 
dawn  the  general  attack  as  already  planned  was 
to  support  them.  Unfortunately  the  four  bat- 
talions were  less  ready  than  was  thought;  they 
were  not  able  to  advance  at  once,  nor  for  ten 
all-precious  hours.  They  did  not  begin  to  ad- 
vance till  4  o'clock  the  next  morning  (the  9th 
of  August)  and  even  then  the  rest  of  the  Divi- 
sion which  was  to  support  them  was  not  in  con- 
cert with  them.  They  attacked  the  hills  to  the 
north  of  Anafarta  Sagir,  but  they  were  now  too 
late,  the  Turks  were  there  before  them,  in  great 
force,  with  their  guns,  and  the  thrust,  which 
the  day  before  could  have  been  met  by  (at  most) 
five  Turk  battalions  without  artillery  was  now 
parried  and  thwarted.  Presently  the  Division 
attacked  with  great  gallantry,  over  burning 
scrub,  seized  Ismail  and  was  then  checked  and 
forced  back  to  the  Chocolate  Hills.  The  left 
had  failed.  The  main  blow  of  the  battle  on 
Sari  Bair  was  to  have  no  support  from  Suvla. 
The  main  blow  was  given,  none  the  less,  by 
the  troops  near  Chunuk.  Three  columns  were 
formed  in  the  pitchy  blackness  of  the  very  early 


200  Galli  poli 

morning  of  the  9th,  two  to  seize  and  clear 
Chunuk  and  Hill  Q,  the  third  to  pass  from  Hill 
Q  on  the  wave  of  the  assault  to  the  peak  of 
Koja  Chemen.  The  first  two  columns  were  on 
the  lower  slopes  of  Chunuk  and  in  the  fields 
about  The  Farm,  with  orders  to  attack  at  dawn. 
The  third  column  consisting  wholly  of  English 
troops  was  not  yet  on  the  ground,  but  moving 
during  the  night  up  the  Chailak  Dere.  The 
Dere  was  jammed  with  pack-mules,  ammuni- 
tion and  wounded  men;  it  was  pitch  dark  and 
the  column  made  bad  going,  and  those  leading 
it  were  doubtful  of  the  way.  Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Baldwin,  who  commanded,  left  his  Brigade 
in  the  Dere,  went  to  the  Headquarters  of  the 
1st  column,  and  brought  back  guides  to  lead  his 
Brigade  into  position.  The  guides  led  him  on 
in  the  darkness,  till  they  realised  that  they  were 
lost.  The  Brigadier  marched  his  men  back  to 
the  Chailak,  and  then,  still  in  pitch  darkness, 
up  a  nullah  into  the  Aghyl  Dere,  and  from 
there,  in  growing  light,  towards  The  Farm. 
This  wandering  in  the  darkness  had  tragical 
results. 


Galli  poll  201 

At  half-past  four  the  guns  from  the  ships  and 
the  army  opened  on  Chunuk,  and  the  columns 
moved  to  the  assault.  Soon  the  peaks  of  their 
objective  were  burning  like  the  hills  of  hell  to 
light  them  on  their  climb  to  death,  and  they 
went  up  in  the  half-darkness  to  the  storm  of 
a  volcano  spouting  fire,  driving  the  Turks  be- 
fore them.  Some  of  the  Warwicks  and  South 
Lancashires  were  the  first  upon  the  top  of 
Chunuk;  Major  Allanson,  leading  the  6th 
Gurkhas,  was  the  first  on  the  ridge  between 
Chunuk  and  Hill  Q.  Up  on  the  crests  came 
the  crowding  sections;  the  Turks  were  break- 
ing and  falling  back.  Our  men  passed  over  the 
crests  and  drove  the  Turks  down  on  the  other 
side.  Victory  was  flooding  up  over  Chunuk 
like  the  Severn  tide :  our  men  had  scaled  the 
scarp,  and  there  below  them  lay  the  ditch,  the 
long  grey  streak  of  the  Hellespont,  the  victory 
and  the  reward  of  victory.  The  battle  lay  like 
a  field  ripe  to  the  harvest,  our  men  had  but  to 
put  in  the  sickle.  The  Third  Column  was  the 
sickle  of  that  field,  that  Third  Column  which 
had  lost  its  way  in  the  blackness  of  the  wilder- 


202  Gallipoli 

ness.  Even  now  that  Third  Column  was  com- 
ing up  the  hill  below;  in  a  few  minutes  it 
would  have  been  over  the  crest,  going  on  to 
victory  with  the  others.  Then,  at  that  moment 
of  time,  while  our  handful  on  the  hilltop 
waited  for  the  weight  of  the  Third  Column  to 
make  its  thrust  a  death-blow,  came  the  most 
tragical  thing  in  all  that  tragical  campaign. 

It  was  barely  daylight  when  our  men  won 
the  hilltop.  The  story  is  that  our  men  moving 
on  the  crest  were  mistaken  for  Turks,  or  (as 
some  think)  that  there  was  some  difference  in 
officers'  watches,  some  few  minutes'  delay  in  be- 
ginning the  fire  of  the  guns,  and  therefore  some 
few  minutes'  delay  in  stopping  the  bombard- 
ment, which  had  been  ordered  to  continue  upon 
the  crest  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour  from 
4.30  A.  M.  Whatever  the  cause,  whether  ac- 
cident, fate,  mistake,  or  the  daily  waste  and 
confusion  of  battle,  our  own  guns  searched  the 
hill-top  for  some  minutes  too  long,  and  thinned 
out  our  brave  handful  with  a  terrible  fire.  They 
were  caught  in  the  open  and  destroyed  there; 
the  Turks  charged  back  upon  the  remnant  and 


Gallipoli  203 

beat  them  off  the  greater  part  of  the  crest. 
Only  a  few  minutes  after  this  the  Third  Column 
came  into  action  in  support :  too  late. 

The  Turks  beat  them  down  the  hill  to  The 
Farm,  but  could  not  drive  the  men  of  the  First 
Column  from  the  southwestern  half  of  the  top 
of  the  Chunuk.  All  through  the  hard  and 
bloody  day  of  the  9th  of  August  the  Turks  tried 
to  carry  this  peak,  but  never  quite  could,  though 
the  day  was  one  long  succession  of  Turk  at- 
tacks, the  Turks  fresh  and  in  great  strength, 
our  men  weary  from  three  terrible  days  and 
nights  and  only  a  battalion  strong,  since  the 
peak  would  not  hold  more.  The  New  Zealand- 
ers  and  some  of  the  13th  Division  held  that  end 
of  Chunuk.  They  were  in  trenches  which  had 
been  dug  under  fire,  partly  by  themselves,  partly 
by  the  Turks.  In  most  places  these  trenches 
were  only  scratchings  in  the  ground,  since 
neither  side  on  that  blazing  and  stricken  hill 
could  stand  to  dig.  Here  and  there,  in  shel- 
tered patches,  the  trenches  were  three  feet  deep, 
but  whether  three  feet  deep  or  three  inches,  all 
were  badly  sited,  and  in  some  parts  had  only 


204  Galli  poll 

ten  yards  field  of  fire.  In  these  pans  or  scratch- 
ings  our  men  fought  all  day,  often  hand  to 
hand,  usually  under  a  pelt  of  every  kind  of 
fire,  often  amid  a  shower  of  bombs  since  the 
Turks  could  creep  up  under  cover  to  within 
so  few  yards.  Our  men  lost  very  heavily 
during  the  day  but  at  nightfall  we  still  held  the 
peak.  After  dark  the  6th  Loyal  North  Lan- 
cashires  relieved  the  garrison,  took  over  the 
trenches,  did  what  they  could  to  strengthen 
them,  and  advanced  them  by  some  yards  here 
and  there.  At  four  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
the  ioth,  the  5th  Wiltshires  came  up  to  sup- 
port them  and  lay  down  behind  the  trenches  in 
the  ashes,  sand  and  scattered  rubble  of  the  hill- 
top. Both  battalions  were  exhausted  from  four 
days  and  nights  of  continual  fighting,  but  in 
very  good  heart.  At  this  time,  these  two  bat- 
talions marked  the  extreme  right  of  our  new 
line ;  on  their  left,  stretching  down  to  The  Farm, 
were  the  ioth  Hampshires,  and  near  The  Farm 
the  remains  of  the  Third  Column  under  Gen- 
eral Baldwin.  There  may  have  been  in  all 
some  five  thousand  men  on  Chunuk  and  within 


Gallipoli  205 

a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  it  round  The  Farm. 
In  the  darkness  before  dawn  when  our  men 
on  the  hill  were  busy  digging  themselves  bet- 
ter cover  for  the  day's  battle,  the  Turks,  now 
strongly  reinforced  from  Bulair  and  Asia,  as- 
saulted Chunuk  with  not  less  than  15,000  men. 
They  came  on  in  a  monstrous  mass,  packed 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  in  some  places  eight  deep, 
in  others  three  or  four  deep.  Practically  all 
their  first  line  were  shot  by  our  men,  prac- 
tically all  the  second  line  were  bayoneted,  but 
the  third  line  got  into  our  trenches  and  over- 
whelmed the  garrison.  Our  men  fell  back  to 
the  second  line  of  trenches  and  rallied  and  fired, 
but  the  Turks  overwhelmed  that  line  too  and 
then  with  their  packed  multitude  they  paused 
and  gathered  like  a  wave,  burst  down  on  the 
Wiltshire  Regiment,  and  destroyed  it  almost 
to  a  man.  Even  so,  the  survivors,  outnum- 
bered 40  to  1,  formed  and  charged  with  the 
bayonet,  and  formed  and  charged  a  second 
time,  with  a  courage  which  makes  the  charge 
of  the  Light  Brigade  seem  like  a  dream.  But 
it  was  a  hopeless  position,  the  Turks  came  on 


206  Gallipoli 

like  the  sea,  beat  back  all  before  them,  paused 
for  a  moment,  set  rolling  down  the  hill  upon 
our  men  a  number  of  enormous  round  bombs, 
which  bounded  into  our  lines  and  burst,  and 
then  following  up  this  artillery  they  fell  on  the 
men  round  The  Farm  in  the  most  bloody  and 
desperate  fight  of  the  campaign. 

Even  as  they  topped  Chunuk  and  swarmed 
down  to  engulf  our  right,  our  guns  opened  upon 
them  in  a  fire  truly  awful,  but  thousands  came 
alive  over  the  crest  and  went  down  to  the  bat- 
tle below.  Stragglers  running  from  the  first 
rush  put  a  panic  in  the  Aghyl  Dere,  where  bear- 
ers, doctors,  mules  and  a  multitude  of  wounded 
were  jammed  up  with  soldiers  trying  to  get  up 
to  the  fight.  Some  of  our  men  held  up  against 
this  thrust  of  the  Turks,  and  in  that  first  brave 
stand,  General  Baldwin  was  killed.  Then  our 
line  broke,  the  Turks  got  fairly  in  among  our 
men  with  a  weight  which  bore  all  before  it, 
and  what  followed  was  a  long  succession  of 
British  rallies  to  a  tussle  body  to  body,  with 
knives  and  stones  and  teeth,  a  fight  of  wild 
beasts  in  the  ruined  cornfields  of  The  Farm. 


Gallipoli  207 

Nothing  can  be  said  of  that  fight,  no  words  can 
describe  nor  any  mind  imagine  it,  except  as  a 
roaring  and  blazing  hour  of  killing.  Our  last 
reserves  came  up  to  it,  and  the  Turks  were 
beaten  back;  very  few  of  their  men  reached 
their  lines  alive.  The  Turk  dead  lay  in  thou- 
sands all  down  the  slopes  of  the  hill;  but  the 
crest  of  the  hill,  the  prize,  remained  in  Turk 
hands,  not  in  ours. 

That  ended  the  battle  of  the  6th-ioth  of 
August.  We  had  beaten  off  the  Turks,  but  our 
men  were  too  much  exhausted  to  do  more. 
They  could  not  go  up  the  hill  again.  Our 
thrust  at  Sari  Bair  had  failed.  It  had  just 
failed,  by  a  few  minutes,  though  unsupported 
from  the  left.  Even  then,  at  the  eleventh  hour, 
two  fresh  battalions  and  a  ton  of  water  would 
have  made  Chunuk  ours,  but  we  had  neither 
the  men  nor  the  water;  Sari  was  not  to  be  our 
hill.  Our  men  fought  for  four  days  and  nights 
in  a  wilderness  of  gorse  and  precipice  to  make 
her  ours.  They  fought  in  a  blazing  sun,  with- 
out rest,  with  little  food  and  with  almost  no 
water,  on  hills  on  fire  and  on  crags  rotting  to 


208  Gallipoli 

the  tread.  They  went,  like  all  their  brothers 
in  that  Peninsula,  on  a  forlorn  hope,  and  by 
bloody  pain  they  won  the  image  and  the  taste 
of  victory,  and  then,  when  their  reeling  bodies 
had  burst  the  bars,  so  that  our  race  might  pass 
through,  there  were  none  to  pass,  the  door  was 
open,  but  there  were  none  to  go  through  it  to 
triumph,  and  then,  slowly,  as  strength  failed, 
the  door  was  shut  again,  the  bars  were  forged 
again,  victory  was  hidden  again,  all  was  to  do 
again,  and  our  brave  men  were  but  the  fewer 
and  the  bitterer  for  all  their  bloody  sacrifice 
for  the  land  they  served.  All  was  to  do  again 
after  the  ioth  of  August,  the  great  battle  of 
the  campaign  was  over.  We  had  made  our 
fight,  we  had  seen  our  enemy  beaten  and  the 
prize  displayed,  and  then  (as  before  at  Helles) 
we  had  to  stop  for  want  of  men,  till  the  enemy 
had  remade  his  army  and  rebuilt  his  fort. 


VI 

The  day  passed,  the  night  came,  the  King  lay  down 
in  his  vaulted  room.  St.  Gabriel  came  from  God  to 
call  him.  "  Charles,  summon  the  army  of  your  empire 
and  go  by  forced  marches  into  the  land  of  Bire,  to  the 
city  that  the  pagans  have  besieged.  The  Christians 
call  and  cry  for  you."  The  Emperor  wished  not  to  go. 
"  God,"  he  said,  "  how  painful  is  my  life."  He  wept 
from  his  eyes,  he  tore  his  white  beard." 

The  end  of  the  Song  of  Roland. 


That,  in  a  way,  was  the  end  of  the  campaign, 

for  no  other  attempt  to  win  through  was  made. 

The  Turks  were  shaken  to  the  heart.     Another 

battle  following  at  once  might  well  have  broken 

them.     But  we  had  not  the  men  nor  the  shells 

for  another  battle.     In  the   five   days'   battle 

on  the  front  of  twelve  miles  we  had  lost  very 

little  less  than  a  quarter  of  our  entire  army, 

and  we  had  shot  away  most  of  our  always 

scanty  supply  of  ammunition.     We  could  not 

attack  again  till  fifty  thousand  more  men  were 

landed    and    the    store    of    shells    replenished. 

Those  men  and  shells  were  not  near  Gallipoli, 

but  in  England,  where  the  war  as  a  whole  had 

to  be  considered.     The  question  to  be  decided, 

by  those  directing  the  war  as  a  whole,  was, 

"should  those  men  and  shells  be  sent?"     It 

was  decided  by  the  High  Direction,  that  they 

should  not  be  sent :  the  effort  therefore  could  not 

be  made. 

211 


212  Gallipoli 

Since  the  effort  could  not  be  made,  the  cam- 
paign declined  into  a  secondary  operation,  to 
contain  large  reserves  of  Turks,  with  their  guns 
and  munitions,  from  use  elsewhere,  in  Meso- 
potamia or  in  the  Caucasus.  But  before  it  be- 
came this,  a  well-planned  and  well-fought  effort 
was  made  from  Suvla  to  secure  our  position  by 
seizing  the  hills  to  the  east  of  the  Bay.  This 
attack  took  place  on  the  21st  August,  in  intense 
heat,  across  an  open  plain  without  cover  of  any 
kind,  blazing  throughout  nearly  all  its  length 
with  scrub  fires.  The  29th  Division  (brought 
up  from  Cape  Helles)  carried  Scimitar  Hill 
with  great  dash,  and  was  then  held  up.  The 
attack  on  Ismail  Oglu  failed.  Two  thrusts 
made  by  the  men  of  Anzac  in  the  latter  days 
of  August,  secured  an  important  well,  and  the 
Turk  stronghold  of  Hill  60.  This  last  suc- 
cess made  the  line  from  Anzac  to  Suvla  im- 
pregnable. 

After  this,  since  no  big  attempt  could  be  made 
by  the  Allied  Troops  and  no  big  attempt  was 
made  by  the  enemy,  the  fighting  settled  down 
into  trench  warfare  on  both  sides.     There  was 


Galli  poll  213 

some  shelling  every  day  and  night,  some  ma- 
chine gun  and  rifle  fire,  much  sniping,  great 
vigilance,  and  occasional  bombing  and  mining. 
The  dysentery,  which  had  been  present  ever 
since  the  heats  began,  increased  beyond  all 
measure;  very  few  men  in  all  that  army  were 
not  attacked  and  weakened  by  it.  Many  thou- 
sands went  down  with  it;  Mudros,  Alexan- 
dria and  Malta  were  filled  with  cases;  many 
died. 

Those  who  remained,  besides  carrying  on  the 
war  by  daily  and  nightly  fire,  worked  continu- 
ally with  pick  and  shovel  to  improve  the  lines. 
Long  after  the  war,  the  goatherd  on  Gallipoli 
will  lose  his  way  in  the  miles  of  trenches  which 
zigzag  from  Cape  Helles  to  Achi  Baba  and 
from  Gaba  Tepe  to  Ejelmer  Bay.  They  run 
to  and  fro  in  all  that  expanse  of  land,  some  of 
them  shallow,  others  deep  cuttings  in  the  marl, 
many  of  them  paved  with  stone  or  faced  with 
concrete,  most  of  them  sided  with  little  caverns, 
leading  far  down  (in  a  few  cases)  to  rooms 
twenty  feet  under  the  ground.  Long  after  we 
are  all  dust  the  goats  of  Gallipoli  will  break 


214  Gal  lip  oli 

their  legs  in  those  pits  and  ditches,  and  over 
their  coffee  round  the  fire  the  elders  will  say 
that  they  were  dug  by  devils  and  the  sons  of 
devils,  and  antiquarians  will  come  from  the 
west  to  dig  there,  and  will  bring  away  shards 
of  iron,  and  empty  tins  and  bones.  Fifty  years 
ago  some  French  staff  officers  traced  out  the 
works  round  Durazzo,  where  Pompey  the 
Great  fought  just  such  another  campaign,  two 
thousand  years  ago.  Two  thousand  years 
hence,  when  this  war  is  forgotten,  those  lines 
under  the  ground  will  draw  the  staff  officers 
of  whatever  country  is  then  the  most  cried  for 
brains. 

Those  lines  were  the  homes  of  thousands  of 
our  soldiers  for  half  a  year  and  more.  There 
they  lived  and  did  their  cooking  and  washing, 
made  their  jokes  and  sang  their  songs.  There 
they  sweated  under  their  burdens,  and  slept,  and 
fell  in  to  die.  There  they  marched  up  the  burn- 
ing hill,  where  the  sand  devils  flung  by  the 
shells  were  blackening  heaven,  there  they  lay  in 
their  dirty  rags  awaiting  death,  and  there  by 


Gallipoli  215 

thousands  up  and  down  they  lie  buried,  in  little 
lonely  graves  where  they  fell,  or  in  the  pits  of 
the  great  engagements. 

Those  lines  at  Cape  Helles,  Anzac  and 
Suvla,  were  once  busy  towns,  thronged  by  thou- 
sands of  citizens  whose  going  and  coming  and 
daily  labour  were  cheerful  with  singing,  as 
though  those  places  were  mining  camps  during 
a  gold  rush,  instead  of  a  perilous  front  where 
the  fire  never  ceased  and  the  risk  of  death  was 
constant.  But  for  the  noise  of  war,  coming 
in  an  irregular  rattle,  with  solitary  big  explo- 
sions, the  screams  of  shells  or  the  wild  whistling 
crying  of  ricochets,  they  seemed  busy  but  very 
peaceful  places.  At  night,  from  the  sea,  the 
lamps  of  the  dugouts  on  the  cliffs  were  like  the 
lights  of  seacoast  towns  in  summer,  and  the 
places  seemingly  as  peaceful,  but  for  the  pop 
and  rattle  of  fire  and  the  streaks  of  glare  from 
the  shells.  There  was  always  singing,  some- 
times very  good,  and  always  beautiful,  coming 
in  the  crash  of  war;  and  always  one  heard  the 
noises  of  the  work  of  men,  the  beat  of  pile- 


216  Galli  poll 

drivers,  wheels  going  over  stones,  and  the  little 
solid  pobbing  noises,  from  bullets  dropping  in 
the  sea. 

I  have  said  that  those  positions  were  like 
mining  camps  during  a  gold  rush.  Ballarat, 
the  Sacramento,  and  the  camps  of  the  Transvaal 
must  have  looked  strangely  like  those  camps  at 
Suvla  and  Cape  Helles.  Anzac  at  night  was 
like  those  crags  of  old  building  over  the  Arno 
at  Florence ;  by  day  it  was  a  city  of  cliff  dwellers, 
stirring  memories  of  the  race's  past.  An  im- 
mense expanse  was  visible  from  all  these  places; 
at  Cape  Helles  there  was  the  plain  rising  grad- 
ually to  Achi  Baba,  at  Anzac  a  wilderness  of 
hills,  at  Suvla  the  same  hills  seen  from  below. 
Over  all  these  places  came  a  strangeness  of 
light,  unlike  anything  to  be  seen  in  the  west,  a 
light  which  made  the  hills  clear  and  unreal  at 
the  same  time,  softening  their  savagery  into 
peace,  till  they  seemed  not  hills  but  swellings  of 
the  land,  as  though  the  land  there  had  breathed- 
in  and  risen  a  little.  All  the  places  were  dust- 
coloured  as  soon  as  the  flowers  had  withered, 
a    dark   dust-coloured   where   the    scrub   grew 


Gallipoli  217 

(often  almost  wine-dark  like  our  own  hills 
where  heather  grows)  a  pale  sand  colour,  where 
the  scrub  gave  out,  and  elsewhere  a  paleness 
and  a  greyness  as  of  moss  and  lichen  and  old 
stone.  On  this  sandy  and  dusty  land,  where 
even  the  trees  were  grey  and  ghostly  (olive  and 
Eastern  currant)  the  camps  were  scattered,  a 
little  and  a  little,  never  much  in  one  place  on 
account  of  shelling,  till  the  impression  given  was 
one  of  multitude. 

The  signs  of  the  occupation  began  far  out  at 
sea  where  the  hospital  ships  lay  waiting  for 
their  freight.  There  were  always  some  there, 
painted  white  and  green,  lying  outside  the  range 
of  the  big  guns.  Nearer  to  the  shore  were  the 
wrecks  of  ships,  some  of  them  sunk  by  our  men, 
to  make  breakwaters,  some  sunk  by  the  Turk 
shells,  some  knocked  to  pieces  or  washed  ashore 
by  foul  weather.  Nearly  all  these  wrecks  were 
of  small  size,  trawlers,  drifters  and  little  coast- 
wise vessels  such  as  peddle  and  bring  home  fish 
on  the  English  coasts.  Closer  in,  right  on  the 
beaches,  were  the  bones  of  still  smaller  boats, 
pinnaces,  cutters  and  lighters,  whose  crews  had 


2i  8  Galli  poli 

been  the  men  of  the  first  landings.  Men  could 
not  see  those  wrecks  without  a  thrill.  There 
were  piers  at  all  the  beaches,  all  built  under 
shell  fire,  to  stand  both  shell  fire  and  the  sea, 
and  at  the  piers  there  was  always  much  busy- 
life,  men  singing  at  their  work,  horses  and  mules 
disembarking,  food  and  munitions  and  water 
discharging,  wounded  going  home  and  drafts 
coming  ashore.  On  the  beaches  were  the  hier- 
oglyphs of  the  whole  bloody  and  splendid  story; 
there  were  the  marks  and  signs,  which  no  one 
could  mistake  nor  see  unmoved. 

Even  after  months  of  our  occupation  the 
traces  were  there  off  the  main  tracks.  A  man 
had  but  to  step  from  one  of  the  roads  into  the 
scrub,  and  there  they  lay,  relics  of  barbed  wire, 
blown  aside  in  tangles,  round  shrapnel-bullets 
in  the  sand,  empty  cartridge-cases,  clips  of  car- 
tridge cases  bent  double  by  a  blow  yet  undis- 
charged, pieces  of  flattened  rifle  barrel,  rags  of 
leather,  broken  bayonets,  jags  and  hacks  of 
shell,  and,  in  little  hollows,  little  heaps  of  car- 
tridge-cases, where  some  man  had  lain  to  fire 
for  hour  after  hour,  often  until  he  died  at  his 


Gallipoli  219 

post,  on  the  25th  of  April.  Here,  too,  one 
came  upon  the  graves  of  soldiers,  sometimes 
alone,  sometimes  three  or  four  together,  each 
with  an  inscribed  cross  and  border  of  stones 
from  the  beach.  Privates,  sergeants  and  offi- 
cers lay  in  those  graves  and  by  them,  all  day 
long,  the  work  which  they  had  made  possible 
by  that  sacrifice  on  the  25th,  went  on  in  a 
stream,  men  and  munitions  going  up  to  the 
front,  and  wounded  and  the  dying  coming  down, 
while  the  explosions  of  the  cannon  trembled 
through  the  earth  to  them  and  the  bullets  piped 
and  fell  over  their  heads. 

But  the  cities  of  those  camps  were  not  cities 
of  the  dead,  they  were  cities  of  intense  life, 
cities  of  comradeship  and  resolve,  unlike  the 
cities  of  peace.  At  Mudros,  all  things  seemed 
little,  for  there  men  were  dwarfed  by  their  set- 
ting; they  were  there  in  ships  which  made  even 
a  full  battalion  seem  only  a  cluster  of  heads. 
On  the  Peninsula  they  seemed  to  have  come  for 
the  first  time  to  full  stature.  There  they  were 
bigger  than  their  surroundings.  There  they 
were  naked  manhood  pitted  against  death  in 


220  Gallipoli 

the  desert  and  more  than  holding  their  own. 

All  those  sun-smitten  hills  and  gullies,  grow- 
ing nothing  but  crackling  scrub,  were  peopled 
by  crowds.  On  all  the  roads,  on  the  plain, 
which  lay  white  like  salt  in  the  glare,  and  on 
the  sides  of  the  gullies,  strange,  sunburned, 
half-naked  men  moved  at  their  work  with  the 
bronze  bodies  of  gods.  Like  Egyptians  build- 
ing a  city  they  passed  and  repassed  with  boxes 
from  the  walls  of  stores  built  on  the  beach. 
Dust  had  toned  their  uniforms  even  with  the 
land.  Their  half-nakedness  made  them  more 
grand  than  clad  men.  Very  few  of  them  were 
less  than  beautiful;  whole  battalions  were  mag- 
nificent, the  very  flower  of  the  world's  men. 
They  had  a  look  in  their  eyes  which  those  who 
saw  them  will  never  forget. 

Sometimes  as  one  watched,  one  heard  a  noise 
of  cheering  from  the  ships,  and  this,  the  herald 
of  good  news,  passed  inland,  till  men  would 
rise  from  sleep  in  their  dugouts,  come  to  the 
door,  blinking  in  the  sun,  to  pass  on  the  cheer. 
In  some  strange  way  the  news,  the  cause  of  the 
cheering,  passed  inland  with  the  cheer;  a  sub- 


Gallipoli  221 

marine  had  sunk  a  transport  off  Constantinople, 
or  an  aeroplane  had  bombed  a  powder  factory. 
One  heard  the  news  pass  on  and  on,  till  it  rang 
from  the  front  trenches  ten  yards  from  the  Turk 
line.  Sometimes  the  cheering  was  very  loud, 
mingled  with  singing;  then  it  was  a  new  bat- 
talion, coming  from  England,  giving  thanks 
that  they  were  there,  after  their  months  of  train- 
ing, to  help  the  fleet  through.  Men  who  heard 
those  battalions  singing  will  never  hear  those 
songs  of  "  Tipperary,"  "  Let's  all  go  down  the 
Strand,"  or  "  We'll  all  go  the  same  way  home," 
without  a  quickening  at  the  heart. 

Everywhere  in  the  three  positions  there  were 
the  homes  of  men.  In  gashes  or  clefts  of  the 
earth  were  long  lines  of  mules  or  horses  with 
Indian  grooms.  On  the  beaches  were  offices, 
with  typewriters  clicking  and  telephone  bells 
ringing.  Stacked  on  one  side  were  ammuni- 
tion carts  so  covered  with  bushes  that  they 
looked  like  the  scrub  they  stood  on.  Here  and 
there  were  strangely  painted  guns,  and  every- 
where the  work  of  men,  armourer's  forges,  far- 
rier's anvils,  the  noise  and  clink  and  bustle  of 


222  Galli  poli 

a  multitude.  Everywhere,  too,  but  especially 
in  the  gullies  were  the  cave-dwellings  of  the  dug- 
outs, which  so  dotted  the  cliffs  with  their  doors, 
that  one  seemed  put  back  to  Cro-Magnon  or 
Tampa,  into  some  swarming  tribe  of  cave- 
dwellers.  All  the  dugouts  were  different, 
though  all  were  built  upon  the  same  principle, 
first  a  scooping  in  the  earth,  then  a  raised  earth 
ledge  for  a  bed,  then  (if  one  were  lucky)  a  cor- 
rugated-iron roof  propped  by  balks,  lastly  a 
topping  of  sandbags  strewn  with  scrub.  For 
doors,  if  one  had  a  door  or  sunshade,  men  used 
sacking,  burlap,  a  bit  of  canvas,  or  a  blanket. 
Then,  when  the  work  was  finished,  the  builder 
entered  in,  to  bathe  in  his  quarter  of  a  pint  of 
water,  smoke  his  pipe,  greet  his  comrades,  and 
think  foul  scorn  of  the  Turk,  whose  bullets 
piped  and  droned  overhead,  all  day  and  night, 
like  the  little  finches  of  home.  Looking  out 
from  the  upper  dugouts  one  saw  the  dusty, 
swarming  warren  of  men,  going  and  coming, 
with  a  kind  of  swift  slouch,  carrying  boxes  from 
the  beach.  Mules  and  men  passed,  songs  went 
up  and  down  the  gullies,  and  were  taken  up  by 


Gallipoli  223 

those  at  rest,  men  washed  and  mended  clothes, 
or  wandered  naked  and  sun  reddened  along 
the  beach,  bathing  among  dropping  bullets. 
Wounded  men  came  down  on  stretchers,  sick 
men  babbled  in  pain  or  cursed  the  flies,  the 
forges  clinked,  the  pile  drivers  beat  in  the  balks 
of  the  piers,  the  bullets  droned  and  piped,  or 
rushed  savagely,  or  popped  into  a  sandbag. 
Up  in  the  trenches  the  rifles  made  the  irregular 
snaps  of  fire-crackers,  sometimes  almost  ceas- 
ing, then  popping,  then  running  along  a  section 
in  a  rattle,  then  quickening  down  the  line  and 
drawing  the  enemy,  then  pausing  and  slowly 
ceasing  and  beginning  again.  From  time  to 
time,  with  a  whistle  and  a  wailing,  some  Asian 
shell  came  over  and  dropped  and  seemed  to 
multiply,  and  gathered  to  herself  the  shriek  of 
all  the  devils  of  hell,  and  burst  like  a  devil  and 
filled  a  great  space  with  blackness  and  dust  and 
falling  fragments.  Then  another  and  another 
came,  almost  in  the  same  place,  till  the  gunners 
had  had  enough.  Then  the  dust  settled,  the 
ruin  was  made  good,  and  all  went  on  as  before, 
men  carrying  and  toiling  and  singing,  bullets 


224  Galli  poll 

piping,  and  the  flies  settling  and  swarming  on 
whatever  was  obscene  in  what  the  shell  had 
scattered. 

Everywhere  in  those  positions  there  was 
gaiety  and  courage  and  devoted  brotherhood, 
but  there  was  also  another  thing,  which  brooded 
over  all,  and  struck  right  home  to  the  heart. 
It  was  a  tragical  feeling,  a  taint  or  flavour  in 
the  mind,  such  as  men  often  feel  in  hospitals 
when  many  are  dying,  the  sense  that  Death  was 
at  work  there,  that  Death  lived  there,  that 
Death  wandered  up  and  down  there  and  fed 
on  Life. 

Since  the  main  object  of  the  campaign,  to 
help  the  fleet  through  the  Narrows,  had  been 
abandoned  (in  mid-August),  and  no  further 
thrust  was  to  be  made  against  the  Turks,  the 
questions  *'  Were  our  100,000  men  in  Gallipoli 
containing  a  sufficiently  large  army  of  Turks 
to  justify  their  continuance  on  the  Peninsula?  " 
and  "  Could  they  be  more  profitably  used  else- 
where? "  arose  in  the  minds  of  the  High  Direc- 
tion from  week  to  week  as  the  war  changed. 


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Galli  poli  225 

In  the  early  autumn,  when  the  Central  Powers 
combined  with  Bulgaria  to  crush  Serbia  and 
open  a  road  to  Constantinople,  these  questions 
became  acute.  During  October  owing  to  the 
radical  change  in  the  Balkan  situation  which 
was  produced  by  the  treachery  of  Bulgaria  and 
the  bewildering  indecision  of  Greece  the  ad- 
vantage of  our  continuing  the  campaign  be- 
came more  and  more  doubtful  and  in  Novem- 
ber, after  full  consideration,  it  was  decided  to 
evacuate  the  Peninsula.  Preparations  were 
made  and  the  work  begun. 

Late  in  November,  something  happened 
which  had  perhaps  some  influence  in  hurrying 
on  the  date  of  the  evacuation.  This  was  the 
blizzard  of  the  26th-28th,  which  lost  us  about 
a  tenth  of  our  whole  army  from  cold,  frostbite, 
exposure,  and  the  sicknesses  which  follow  them. 
The  26th  began  as  a  cold,  dour  Gallipoli  day 
with  a  bitter  northeasterly  wind,  which  in- 
creased in  the  afternoon  to  a  fresh  gale,  with 
sleet.  Later,  it  increased  still  more,  and  blew 
hard,  with  thunder;  and  with  the  thunder  came 
a  rain  more  violent  than  any  man  of  our  army 


226  Gallipoli 

had  ever  seen.  Water  pours  off  very  quickly 
from  that  land  of  abrupt  slopes.  In  a  few 
minutes  every  gully  was  a  raging  torrent,  and 
every  trench  a  river.  By  an  ill-chance  this 
storm  fell  with  cruel  violence  upon  the  ever 
famous  29th  Division  then  holding  trenches  at 
Suvla.  The  water  poured  down  into  their 
trenches,  as  though  it  were  a  tidal  wave.  It 
came  in  with  a  rush,  with  a  head  upon  it  like 
the  tide  advancing,  so  quickly  that  men  were  one 
minute  dry  and  the  next  moment  drowned  at 
their  posts.  They  were  caught  so  suddenly  that 
those  who  escaped  had  to  leap  from  their 
trenches  for  dear  life,  leaving  coats,  haver- 
sacks, food  and  sometimes  even  their  rifles,  be- 
hind them. 

Our  trenches  were  in  nearly  every  case  be- 
low those  of  the  Turks,  who  therefore  suffered 
from  the  water  far  less  than  our  men  did. 
The  Turks  saw  our  men  leaping  from  their 
trenches,  and  either  guessing  the  reason  or  fear- 
ing an  attack,  opened  a  very  heavy  rifle  and 
shrapnel  fire  upon  them.  Our  men  had  to 
shelter  behind  the  parados  of  their  trenches, 


Gallipoli  227 

where  they  scraped  themselves  shallow  pans  in 
the  mud  under  a  heavy  fire.  At  dark  the  sleet 
increased,  the  mud  froze,  and  there  our  men 
lay,  most  of  them  without  overcoats,  and  many 
of  them  without  food.  In  one  trench  when 
the  flood  rose,  a  pony,  a  mule,  a  pig,  and  two 
dead  Turks  were  washed  over  a  barricade 
together. 

Before  the  night  fell,  many  of  our  men  were 
frost-bitten  and  started  limping  to  the  ambu- 
lances, under  continual  shrapnel  fire  and  in 
blinding  sleet.  A  good  many  fell  down  by  the 
way  and  were  frozen  to  death.  The  gale  in- 
creased slowly  all  through  the  night,  blowing 
hard  and  steadily  from  the  north,  making  a 
great  sea  upon  the  coast,  and  driving  the  spray 
far  inland.  At  dawn  it  grew  colder,  and  the 
sleet  hardened  into  snow,  with  an  ever-increas- 
ing wind,  which  struck  through  our  men  to  the 
marrow.  "  They  fell  ill,"  said  one  who  was 
there,  "  in  heaps."  The  water  from  the  flood 
had  fallen  in  the  night,  but  it  was  still  four 
feet  deep  in  many  of  the  trenches,  and  our  men 
passed  the  morning  under  fire  in  their  shelter 


228  Gallipoli 

pans,  fishing  for  food  and  rifles  in  their  drowned 
lines.  All  through  the  day  the  wind  gathered, 
till  it  was  blowing  a  full  gale,  vicious  and  bitter 
cold ;  and  on  the  28th  it  reached  its  worst.  The 
28th  was  spoken  of  afterwards  as  u  Frozen 
Foot  Day;  "  it  was  a  day  more  terrible  than 
any  battle;  but  now  it  was  taking  toll  of  the 
Turks,  and  the  fire  slackened.  Probably  either 
side  could  have  had  the  other's  position  for  the 
taking  on  the  28th,  had  there  been  enough  un- 
frosted  feet  to  advance.  It  was  a  day  so  blind 
with  snow  and  driving  storm  that  neither  side 
could  see  to  fire,  and  this  brought  the  advan- 
tage, that  our  men  hopping  to  the  ambulances 
had  not  to  go  through  a  pelt  of  shrapnel  bul- 
lets. On  the  29th,  the  limits  of  human  strength 
were  reached.  Some  of  those  frozen  three 
days  before  were  able  to  return  to  duty,  and 
"  a  great  number  of  officers  and  men  who  had 
done  their  best  to  stick  it  out  were  forced  to  go 
to  hospital."  The  water  fell  during  this  day, 
but  it  left  on  an  average  2T/2  feet  of  thick, 
slushy  mud,  into  which  many  trenches  collapsed. 
After  this  the  weather  was  fine  and  warm. 


Gal  lip  oli  229 

At  Helles  and  Anzac  the  fall  of  the  ground 
gave  some  protection  from  this  gale,  but  at 
Suvla  there  was  none.  When  the  weather 
cleared,  the  beaches  were  heaped  with  the 
wreck  of  piers,  piles,  boats  and  lighters,  all 
broken  and  jammed  together.  But  great  as 
this  wreck  was  the  wreck  of  men  was  even 
greater.  The  29th  Division  had  lost  two- 
thirds  of  its  strength.  In  the  three  sectors 
over  200  men  were  dead,  over  10,000  were 
unfit  for  further  service  and  not  less  than 
30,000  others  were  sickened  and  made  old  by- 
it. 

The  Turk  loss  was  much  more  serious  even 
than  this,  for  though  they  suffered  less  from 
the  wet,  they  suffered  more  from  the  cold, 
through  being  on  the  higher  ground.  The 
snow  lay  upon  their  trenches  long  after  it  had 
gone  from  ours,  and  the  Turk  equipment  though 
very  good  as  far  as  it  went,  was  only  good  for 
the  summer.  Their  men  wore  thin  clothes, 
and  many  of  them  had  neither  overcoat  nor 
blanket.  The  blizzard  which  was  a  discourage- 
ment to  us,  took  nearly  all  the  heart  out  of  the 


230  Galli  poli 

Turks;  and  this  fact  must  be  borne  in  mind  in 
the  reading  of  the  next  few  pages. 

The  gale  had  one  good  effect.  Either  the 
cold  or  the  rain  destroyed  or  removed  the  cause 
of  the  dysentery,  which  had  taken  nearly  a 
thousand  victims  a  day  for  some  months.  The 
disease  stopped  at  once  and  no  more  fresh 
cases  were  reported. 

This  storm  made  any  attempt  to  land  or  to 
leave  the  land  impossible  for  four  days  to- 
gether. Coming,  as  it  did,  upon  the  decision 
to  evacuate,  it  gave  the  prompting,  that  the 
evacuation  should  be  hurried,  lest  such  weather 
should  prevent  it.  On  the  8th  of  December, 
the  evacuation  of  Anzac  and  Suvla  was  ordered 
to  begin. 

It  was  not  an  easy  task  to  remove  large 
numbers  of  men,  guns  and  animals  from  posi- 
tions commanded  by  the  Turk  observers  and 
open  to  every  cruising  aeroplane.  But  by  ruse 
and  skill,  and  the  use  of  the  dark,  favoured  by 
fine  weather,  the  work  was  done,  almost  with- 
out loss,  and,  as  far  as  one  could  judge,  unsus- 
pected. 


Gallipoli  231 

German  agents,  eager  to  discredit  those 
whom  they  could  not  defeat,  have  said,  "  that 
we  bribed  the  Turks  to  let  us  go;  "  next  year 
perhaps  they  will  say  "  that  the  Turks  bribed 
us  to  go;"  the  year  after  that  perhaps,  they 
will  invent  something  equally  false  and  even 
sillier.  But  putting  aside  the  foulness  and  the 
folly  of  this  bribery  lie,  it  is  interesting  to 
enquire  how  it  happened  that  the  Turks  did  not 
attack  our  men  while  they  were  embarking. 

The  Turks  were  very  good  fighters,  furious 
in  attack  and  resolute  in  defence,  but  among 
their  qualities  of  mind  were  some  which  greatly 
puzzled  our  commanders.  Their  minds  would 
sometimes  work  in  ways  very  strange  to 
Europeans.  They  did,  or  refrained  from 
doing,  certain  things  in  ways  for  which  neither 
we  nor  our  Allies  could  account.  Some  day, 
long  hence,  when  the  war  is  over,  the  Turk 
story  of  our  withdrawal  will  be  made  known. 
Until  then,  we  can  only  guess,  why  it  was  that 
the  embarkation,  which  many  had  thought 
would  lose  us  half  our  army,  was  made  good 
from  Anzac  and  Suvla  with  the  loss  of  only 


232  Galli  poll 

four  or  five  men  (or  less  than  the  normal  loss 
of  a  night  in  the  trenches).  Only  two  explana- 
tions are  possible.  Either  (1)  the  Turks 
knew  that  we  were  going  and  wanted  to  be  rid 
of  us,  or  (2)  they  did  not  know  that  we  were 
going  and  were  entirely  deceived  by  our  ruses. 
Had  they  known  that  we  were  going  from 
Anzac  and  Suvla,  it  is  at  least  likely  that  they 
would  have  hastened  our  going,  partly  that 
they  might  win  some  booty,  which  they  much 
needed,  or  take  a  large  number  of  prisoners, 
whose  appearance  would  have  greatly  cheered 
the  citizens  of  Constantinople.  But  nearly  all 
those  of  our  army  who  were  there,  felt,  both 
from  observation  and  intelligence,  that  the 
Turks  did  not  know  that  we  were  going.  As 
far  as  men  on  one  side  in  a  war  can  judge  of 
their  enemies  they  felt  that  the  Turks  were 
deceived,  completely  deceived,  by  the  ruses  em- 
ployed by  us,  and  that  they  believed  that  we 
were  being  strongly  reinforced  for  a  new  at- 
tack. Our  soldiers  took  great  pains  to  make 
them  believe  this.  Looking  down  upon  us 
from  their  heights,  the  Turks  saw  boats  leaving 


Gallipoli  233 

the  shore  apparently  empty,  and  returning, 
apparently,  full  of  soldiers.  Looking  up  at 
them,  from  our  position  our  men  saw  how  the 
sight  affected  them.  For  the  twelve  days  dur- 
ing which  the  evacuation  was  in  progress  at 
Anzac  and  Suvla,  the  Turks  were  plainly  to  be 
seen,  digging  everywhere  to  secure  themselves 
from  the  feared  attack.  They  dug  new  lines, 
they  brought  up  new  guns,  they  made  ready 
for  us  in  every  way.  On  the  night  of  the  19th- 
20th  December,  in  hazy  weather,  at  full  moon, 
our  men  left  Suvla  and  Anzac,  unmolested. 

It  was  said  by  Dr.  Johnson  that  "  no  man 
does  anything,  consciously  for  the  last  time, 
without  a  feeling  of  sadness. "  No  man  of  all 
that  force  passed  down  those  trenches,  the 
scenes  of  so  much  misery  and  pain  and  joy  and 
valour  and  devoted  brotherhood,  without  a 
deep  feeling  of  sadness.  Even  those  who  had 
been  loudest  in  their  joy  at  going  were  sad. 
Many  there  did  not  want  to  go;  but  felt  that  it 
was  better  to  stay,  and  that  then,  with  another 
fifty  thousand  men,  the  task  could  be  done,  and 
their  bodies  and  their  blood  buy  victory  for  us. 


234  Galli  poll 

This  was  the  feeling  even  at  Suvla,  where  the 
men  were  shaken  and  sick  still  from  the  storm; 
but  at  Anzac,  the  friendly  little  kindly  city, 
which  had  been  won  at  such  cost  in  the  ever- 
glorious  charge  of  the  28th,  and  held  since  with 
such  pain,  and  built  with  such  sweat  and  toil 
and  anguish,  in  thirst,  and  weakness  and  bodily 
suffering,  which  had  seen  the  thousands  of  the 
13th  Division  land  in  the  dark  and  hide,  and 
had  seen  them  fall  in  with  the  others  to  go  to 
Chunuk,  and  had  known  all  the  hope  and  fer- 
vour, all  the  glorious  resolve,  and  all  the  bitter- 
ness and  disappointment  of  the  unhelped  at- 
tempt, the  feeling  was  far  deeper.  Officers  and 
men  went  up  and  down  the  well-known  gullies 
moved  almost  to  tears  by  the  thought  that  the 
next  day  those  narrow  acres  so  hardly  won  and 
all  those  graves  of  our  people  so  long  defended 
would  be  in  Turk  hands. 

For  some  weeks,  our  men  had  accustomed 
the  Turks  to  sudden  cessations  of  fire  for  half- 
an-hour  or  more.  At  first,  the  Turks  had  been 
made  suspicious  by  these  silences,  but  they  were 
now  used  to  them,  and  perhaps  glad  of  them. 


Gallipoli  23  5 

They  were  not  made  suspicious  by  the  slacken- 
ing of  the  fire  on  the  night  of  the  withdrawal. 
The  mules  and  guns  had  all  gone  from  Suvla. 
A  few  mules  and  a  few  destroyed  guns  were  left 
at  Anzac;  in  both  places  a  pile  of  stores  was 
left,  all  soaked  in  oil  and  ready  for  firing.  The 
ships  of  war  drew  near  to  the  coast,  and  trained 
their  guns  on  the  hills.  In  the  haze  of  the 
full  moon  the  men  filed  off  from  the  trenches 
down  to  the  beaches  and  passed  away  from 
Gallipoli,  from  the  unhelped  attempt  which 
they  had  given  their  bodies  and  their  blood  to 
make.  They  had  lost  no  honour.  They  were 
not  to  blame,  that  they  were  creeping  off  in 
the  dark,  like  thieves  in  the  night.  Had  others 
(not  of  their  profession)  many  hundreds  of 
miles  away,  but  seen  as  they,  as  generous,  as 
wise,  as  forseeing,  as  full  of  sacrifice,  those 
thinned  companies  with  the  looks  of  pain  in 
their  faces,  and  the  mud  of  the  hills  thick  upon 
their  bodies,  would  have  given  thanks  in  Santa 
Sophia  three  months  before.  They  had  failed 
to  take  Gallipoli,  and  the  mine  fields  still 
barred  the  Hellespont,  but  they  had  fought  a 


236  Gallipoli 

battle  such  as  has  never  been  seen  upon  this 
earth.  What  they  had  done  will  become  a 
glory  forever,  wherever  the  deeds  of  heroic 
unhelped  men  are  honoured  and  pitied  and 
understood.  They  went  up  at  the  call  of  duty, 
with  a  bright  banner  of  a  battle-cry,  against  an 
impregnable  fort.  Without  guns,  without 
munitions,  without  help  and  without  drink  they 
climbed  the  scarp  and  held  it  by  their  own 
glorious  manhood,  quickened  by  a  word  from 
their  chief.  Now  they  were  giving  back  the 
scarp  and  going  out  into  new  adventures,  wher- 
ever the  war  might  turn. 

Those  going  down  to  the  beaches  wondered 
in  a  kind  of  awe  whether  the  Turks  would  dis- 
cover them  and  attack.  The  minutes  passed, 
and  boat  after  boat  left  the  shore,  but  no  attack 
came.  The  arranged  rifles  fired  mechanically 
in  the  outer  trenches  at  long  intervals,  and  the 
crackle  of  the  Turk  reply  followed.  At  Anzac, 
a  rearguard  of  honour  had  been  formed.  The 
last  two  hundred  men  to  leave  Anzac  were  sur- 
vivors of  those  who  had  landed  in  the  first 
charge,  so  glorious  and  so  full  of  hope  on  the 


Gallipoli  237 

25th  of  April.  They  had  fought  through  the 
whole  campaign  from  the  very  beginning;  they 
had  seen  it  all.  It  was  only  just  that  they 
should  be  the  last  to  leave.  As  they,  too, 
moved  down,  one  of  their  number  saw  a  soli- 
tary Turk,  black  against  the  sky,  hard  at  work 
upon  his  trench.  That  was  the  last  enemy  to 
be  seen  from  Anzac. 

At  half-past  five  in  the  winter  morning  of  the 
20th  December  the  last  boat  pushed  off;  and 
the  last  of  our  men  had  gone  from  Suvla  and 
Anzac.  Those  who  had  been  there  from  the 
first  were  deeply  touched.  There  was  a  long- 
ing that  it  might  be  to  do  again,  with  the  same 
comrades,  under  the  same  chiefs  but  with  better 
luck  and  better  backing.  Some  distance  from 
the  shore  the  boats  paused  to  watch  the  last 
act  in  the  withdrawal.  It  was  dead  calm 
weather,  with  just  that  ruffle  of  wind  which 
comes  before  the  morning.  The  Turk  fire 
crackled  along  the  lines  as  usual,  but  the  with- 
drawal was  still  not  suspected.  Then  from  the 
beaches  within  the  stacks  of  abandoned  stores 
came  the  noise  of  explosion,  the  charges  had 


238  Gallipoli 

been  fired,  and  soon  immense  flames  were  lick- 
ing up  those  boxes  and  reddening  the  hills.  As 
the  flames  grew,  there  came  a  stir  in  the  Turk 
lines,  and  then  every  Turk  gun  that  could  be 
brought  to  bear  opened  with  shrapnel  and  high 
explosive  on  the  area  of  the  bonfires.  It  was 
plain  that  the  Turks  misread  the  signs.  They 
thought  that  some  lucky  shell  had  fired  our 
stores  and  that  they  could  stop  us  from  putting 
out  the  flames.  Helped  by  the  blasts  of  many 
shells  the  burning  rose  like  balefire,  crowned  by 
wreaths  and  streaks  and  spouts  of  flame.  The 
stores  were  either  ashes,  or  in  a  blaze  which 
none  could  quench  before  the  Turks  guessed 
the  meaning  of  that  burning.  Long  before  the 
fires  had  died  and  before  the  Turks  were 
wandering  in  joy  among  our  trenches,  our  men 
were  aboard  their  ships  standing  over  to 
Mudros. 

Some  have  said,  "  Even  if  the  Turks  were 
deceived  at  Anzac  and  Suvla,  they  must  have 
known  that  you  were  leaving  Cape  Helles. 
Why  did  they  not  attack  you  while  you  were 
embarking  there?  "     I  do  not  know  the  answer 


GalU  poll  239 

to  this  question.  But  it  is  possible  that  they 
did  not  know  that  we  were  leaving.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  they  believed  that  we  should  hold 
Cape  Helles  like  an  Eastern  Gibraltar.  It  is 
possible,  on  the  other  hand,  that  they  were  de- 
ceived again  by  our  ruses.  It  is  however, 
certain  that  they  watched  us  far  more  narrowly 
at  Cape  Helles  after  the  Anzac  evacuation. 
Aeroplanes  cruised  over  our  position  fre- 
quently, and  shell-fire  increased  and  became 
very  heavy.  Still,  when  the  time  came,  the 
burning  of  our  stores,  after  our  men  had  em- 
barked, seemed  to  be  the  first  warning  that  the 
Turks  had  that  we  were  going. 

This  was  a  mystery  to  our  soldiers  at  the 
time  and  seems  strange  now.  It  is  possible  that 
at  Cape  Helles,  the  Turks'  shaken,  frozen  and 
out-of-heart  soldiers  may  have  known  that  we 
were  going  yet  had  no  life  left  in  them  for  an 
attack.  Many  things  are  possible  in  this 
world,  and  the  darkness  is  strange  and  the 
heart  of  a  fellow-man  is  darkness  to  us.  There 
were  things  in  the  Turk  heart  very  dark  indeed 
to  those  who  tried  to  read  it.     The  storm  had 


240  GalU  poll 

dealt  with  them  cruelly,  that  is  all  that  we  know. 
Let  us  wait  till  we  know  their  story. 

The  Cape  Helles  position  was  held  for 
twenty  days,  after  we  had  left  Anzac  and  Suvla. 
On  the  8th~9th  of  January  in  the  present  year, 
it  was  abandoned,  with  slight  loss,  though  in 
breaking  weather.  By  4  o'clock  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  9th  of  January,  the  last  man  had 
passed  the  graves  of  those  who  had  won  the 
beaches.  They  climbed  on  board  their  boats 
and  pushed  off.  They  had  said  good-bye  to 
the  English  dead,  whose  blood  had  given  them 
those  acres,  now  being  given  back.  Some  felt, 
as  they  passed  those  graves,  that  the  stones 
were  living  men,  who  cast  a  long  look  after 
them  when  they  had  passed,  and  sighed,  and 
turned  landward  as  they  had  turned  of  old. 
Then  in  a  rising  sea,  whipped  with  spray, 
among  the  noise  of  ships  weltering  to  the  rails, 
the  battalions  left  Cape  Helles;  the  River  Clyde 
dimmed  into  the  gale  and  became  a  memory, 
and  the  Gallipoli  campaign  was  over. 

Many  people  have  asked  me,  what  the  cam- 


Gallipoli  241 

paign  achieved?  It  achieved  much.  It  de- 
stroyed and  put  out  of  action  many  more  of 
the  enemy  than  of  our  own  men.  Our  own 
losses  in  killed,  wounded  and  missing  were, 
roughly  speaking,  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
thousand  men,  and  the  sick  about  one  hundred 
thousand  more,  or  (in  all)  more  than  two  and 
one-half  times  as  many  as  the  army  which  made 
the  landing.  The  Turk  losses  from  all  causes 
were  far  greater;  they  had  men  to  waste  and 
wasted  them,  like  water,  at  Cape  Helles,  Lone 
Pine  and  Chunuk.  The  real  Turk  losses  will 
never  be  tabled  and  published,  but  at  the  five 
battles  of  The  Landings,  the  6th  May,  the  4th 
June,  the  28th  of  June,  and  the  6th-ioth  Au- 
gust, they  lost  in  counted  killed  alone,  very 
nearly  as  many  as  were  killed  on  our  side  in  the 
whole  campaign.  Then,  though  we  did  not  do 
what  we  hoped  to  do,  our  presence  in  Gallipoli 
contained  large  armies  of  Turks  in  and  near  the 
Peninsula.  They  had  always  from  15  to  20,- 
000  more  men  than  we  had,  on  the  Peninsula 
itself,  and  at  least  as  many  more,  ready  to 
move,  on  the  Asian  shore  and  at  Rodosto.     In 


242  Gallipoli 

all,  we  disabled,  or  held  from  action  elsewhere, 
not  less  than  400,000  Turks,  that  is,  a  very 
large  army  of  men  who  might  have  been  used 
elsewhere,  with  disastrous  advantage,  in  the 
Caucasus,  when  Russia  was  hard  pressed,  or, 
as  they  were  used  later,  in  Mesopotamia. 

So  much  for  the  soldiers'  side;  but  politically, 
the  campaign  achieved  much.  In  the  begin- 
ning, it  had  a  profound  effect  upon  Italy;  it 
was,  perhaps,  one  of  the  causes  which  brought 
Italy  into  her  war  with  Austria.  In  the  begin- 
ning, too,  it  had  a  profound  effect  upon  the 
Balkan  States.  Bulgaria  made  no  move  against 
us  until  five  months  after  our  landings.  Had 
we  not  gone  to  Gallipoli  she  would  have  joined 
our  enemies  in  the  late  spring  instead  of  in  the 
middle  autumn. 

Some  of  our  enemies  have  said  that  "  the 
campaign  was  a  defeat  for  the  British  Navy." 
It  is  true  that  we  lost  two  capital  ships,  from 
mines,  in  the  early  part  of  the  campaign,  and  1 
think,  in  all,  two  others,  from  torpedoes,  dur- 
ing the  campaign.  Such  loss  is  not  very  serious 
in  eleven  months  of  naval  war.      For  the  cam- 


Gallipoli  243 

paign  was  a  naval  war,  it  depended  utterly  and 
solely  upon  the  power  of  the  Navy.  By  our 
Navy  we  went  there  and  were  kept  there,  and 
by  our  Navy  we  came  away.  During  the  nine 
months  of  our  hold  on  the  Peninsula  over  three 
hundred  thousand  men  were  brought  by  the 
Navy  from  places  three,  four,  or  even  six  thou- 
sand miles  away.  During  the  operations  some 
half  of  these  were  removed  by  our  Navy,  as 
sick  and  wounded,  to  ports  from  eight  hundred 
to  three  thousand  miles  away.  Every  day,  for 
eleven  months,  ships  of  our  Navy  moved  up 
and  down  the  Gallipoli  coast  bombarding  the 
Turk  positions.  Every  day  during  the  opera- 
tions our  Navy  kept  our  armies  in  food,  drink 
and  supplies.  Every  day,  in  all  that  time,  if 
weather  permitted,  ships  of  our  Navy  cruised 
in  the  Narrows  and  off  Constantinople,  and  the 
seaplanes  of  our  Navy  raided  and  scouted 
within  the  Turk  lines.  If  there  had  been,  I 
will  not  say,  any  defeat  of,  but  any  check  to 
the  Navy,  we  could  not  have  begun  the  cam- 
paign or  continued  it.  Every  moment  of  those 
eleven  months  of  war  was  an  illustration  of 


244  Gallipoli 

the  silent  and  unceasing  victory  of  our  Navy's 
power.  As  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  has  put  it  "  the 
Navy  was  our  father  and  our  mother." 

"  Still,"  our  enemies  say,  "  you  did  not  win 
the  Peninsula."  We  did  not;  and  some  day, 
when  truth  will  walk  clear-eyed,  it  will  be  known 
why  we  did  not.  Until  then,  let  our  enemies 
say  this:  "  They  did  not  win,  but  they  came 
across  three  thousand  miles  of  sea,  a  little  army 
without  reserves  and  short  of  munitions,  a 
band  of  brothers,  not  half  of  them  half-trained, 
and  nearly  all  of  them  new  to  war.  They 
came  to  what  we  said  was  an  impregnable  fort 
on  which  our  veterans  of  war  and  massacre  had 
laboured  for  two  months,  and  by  sheer  naked 
manhood  they  beat  us,  and  drove  us  out  of  it. 
Then  rallying,  but  without  reserves,  they  beat 
us  again  and  drove  us  further.  Then  rallying 
once  more,  but  still  without  reserves,  they  beat 
us  again,  this  time  to  our  knees.  Then,  had 
they  had  reserves,  they  would  have  conquered, 
but  by  God's  pity  they  had  none.  Then,  after 
a  lapse  of  time,  when  we  were  men  again,  they 
had  reserves,  and  they  hit  us  a  staggering  blow, 


Gallipoli  245 

which  needed  but  a  push  to  end  us,  but  God 
again  had  pity.  After  that  our  God  was  in- 
deed pitiful,  for  England  made  no  further 
thrust,  and  they  went  away.n 

Even  so  was  wisdom  proven  blind, 
So  courage  failed,  so  strength  was  chained, 
Even  so  the  gods,  whose  seeing  mind 
Is  not  as  ours,  ordained. 

Lollingdon, 

June  29,  1916. 


THE   END 


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HHE   following   pages  contain  advertisements    of 
a  few   Macmillan   books  by  the  same  author 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

By  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

Salt  Water  Poems  and  Ballads 

With  plates  in  color  and  black  and  white  illustrations  by 

Charles  Pears 
It  is  first  of  all  as  a  poet  of  the  sea  that  most  people 
think  of  John  Masefield.  Consequently  the  publication  of 
what  may  be  called  a  de  luxe  edition  of  his  best  salt  water 
ballads  and  sea  poems  is  particularly  gratifying.  Here 
will  be  found  one  or  two  absolutely  new  pieces,  new,  that 
is,  so  far  as  their  inclusion  in  a  book  is  concerned.  Among 
these  are  "The  Ship  and  Her  Makers,"  and  "The  New 
Bedford  Whaler."  Here  also  well-chosen  selections  from 
"  Salt  Water  Ballads,"  from  "  Philip  the  King,"  and  "  The 
Story  of  a  Round  House."  Mr.  Masefield  has  been  ex- 
tremely fortunate  in  his  illustrator.  The  twelve  full-page 
illustrations  in  color  and  the  twenty  in  black  and  white  by 
Mr.  Pears  admirably  reflect  the  spirit  of  the  poet's  lines. 

The  Locked  Chest  and 
The  Sweeps  of  Ninety-Eight: 

Two  One  Act  Plays 

That  Mr.  Masefield  is  well  grounded  in  the  principles  of 
dramatic  art  has  been  amply  proved  by  the  plays  which  he 
has  published  hitherto—"  The  Faithful,"  "  Philip  the  King," 
"  The  Tragedy  of  Pompey "  among  others.  In  this  book 
two  further  additions  are  made  to  a  literature  which  he 
has  already  so  greatly  enriched. 

Multitude  and  Solitude 

Published  a  good  many  years  ago,  before  the  genius  of 
John  Masefield  was  fully  appreciated,  this  novel  is  found 
to  exhibit  those  qualities  which,  present  in  his  later  works, 
have  served  to  mark  him  as  one  of  the  shrewdest  of  ob- 
servers of  human  nature.  "  Multitude  and  Solitude  "  is  a 
fascinating  story  of  adventure,  having  to  do  with  a  coura- 
geous fight  that  is  made  against  the  far  too  often  fatal  sleep- 
ing sickness.  

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Captain  Margaret 

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Captain  Margaret,  owner  of  the  Broken  Heart,  mild  dreamer  and 
hardy  adventurer  in  one,  is  a  type  of  character  one  does  not  often 
meet  in  fiction,  and  his  troubled  pursuit  of  the  vision  he  is  always 
seeing,  in  Mr.  MasefiekTs  telling,  is  a  story  such  as  we  seldom  hear. 
It  is  a  strange  crew  that  goes  scurrying  out  of  Salcombe  Pool  on  a 
darkening  flood-tide  in  the  Broken  Heart,  bound  for  the  treasure- 
land  of  Darien.  There  is  Captain  Cammock,  strong  and  fine, 
Stukeley  the  beast,  Perrin  the  feeble,  Olivia  beautiful  and  blind,  and 
Captain  Margaret  wisely  good  and  uncomplaining  —  not  a  one  of 
them  but  shines  out  from  the  story  with  unforgettable  vividness. 
From  England  to  Virginia  and  the  Spanish  Main  with  men  at  arms 
between  decks  goes  the  Broken  Heart  following  her  master's 
dream,  and  her  thrilling  voyage  with  its  storms  and  battles  is 
strongly  and  stirringly  told.  When  John  Masefield  writes  of  the 
sea,  the  sea  lives. 


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Author  of  "  The  Everlasting  Mercy  "  and  "  The  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street,"  etc. 

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The  title  piece  in  this  volume  is  a  dramatic  poem  of  sixty  pages 
the  action  of  which  takes  place  in  the  time  of  Christ.  The  charac- 
ters introduced  include  Pontius  Pilate,  Joseph  of  Ramah  and  Herod. 
The  play,  for  it  is  really  such,  is  written  in  rhyme  and  is  one  of  Mr. 
Masefield's  most  interesting  and  important  contributions  to  litera- 
ture. In  addition  to  this  there  are  in  the  book  many  sonnets  and 
short  poems. 

"  Reveals  an  interesting  development  in  poetic  thought  and  ex- 
pression ...  a  new  Masefield  .  .  .  who  has  never  written  with 
more  dignity,  nor  with  more  artistry.  Those  who  go  in  quest  of 
Beauty  will  find  her  here.  .  .  .  Here  is  beauty  of  impression, 
beauty  of  expression,  beauty  of  thought,  and  beauty  of  phrase.11  — 
The  New  York  Times. 

The  Tragedy  of  Nan 

By  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

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"  One  of  the  most  distinctive  tragedies  written  by  a  dramatist  of 
the  modern  school."  —  N.  Y.  Evening  Post. 


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Mr.  Masefield's  contributions  to  dramatic  literature  are  held  in  quite  as  high 
esteem  by  his  admirers  as  his  narrative  poems.  In  "  The  Faithful,"  his  new 
play,  he  is  at  his  best. 

"  A  striking  drama  ...  a  notable  work  that  will  meet  with  the  hearty  appre- 
ciation of  discerning  readers." —  The  Nation. 


Philip  the  King,  and  Other  Poems 

By  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

Author  of  "  The  Tragedy  of  Pompey,"  "  The  Everlasting  Mercy,"  "  The  Daffo- 
dil Fields" 

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"  Mr.  Masefield's  new  poetical  drama  is  a  piece  of  work  such  as  only  the  au- 
thor of  Nan  '  and  'The  Tragedy  of  Pompey'  could  have  written,  tense  in  situ- 
ation and  impressive  in  its  poetry.  ...  In  addition  to  this  important  play,  the 
volume  contains  some  new  and  powerful  narrative  poems  of  the  sea  —  the  men 
who  live  on  it  and  their  ships.  There  are  also  some  shorter  lyrics  as  well  as  an 
impressive  poem  on  the  present  war  in  Europe  which  expresses,  perhaps,  better 
than  anything  yet  written,  the  true  spirit  of  England  in  the  present  struggle." 

"  Mr.  Masefield  has  never  done  anything  better  than  these  poems." 

—  Argonaut. 

"  The  compelling  strength  of  John  Masefield's  genius  is  revealed  in  the  mem- 
orable poem, '  August,  1914,'  published  in  his  latest  volume  of  poetry." 

—  Review  of  Reviews. 


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The  Story  of  a  Round-House, 
and  Other  Poems 

By  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

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"  The  story  of  that  rounding  of  the  Horn !  Never  in  prose  has  the  sea  been  so  tremen- 
dously described." —  Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  A  remarkable  poem  of  the  sea." —  San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

"Vivid  and  thrillingly  realistic." —  Current  Literature. 

"  A  genuine  sailor  and  a  genuine  poet  are  a  rare  combination ;  they  have  produced  a 
rare  poem  of  the  sea,  which  has  made  Mr.  Masefield's  position  in  literature  secure  beyond 
the  reach  of  caviling."  —  Everybody's  Magazine. 

"  Masefield  has  prisoned  in  verse  the  spirit  of  life  at  sea."  —  N.  Y.  Sun. 


The  Everlasting  Mercy  and 
The  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street 

(Awarded  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature's  prize  of  $500) 

New  and  revised  edition,  $1,23.     Leather,  $1.60 

"  Mr.  Masefield  comes  like  a  flash  of  light  across  contemporary  English  poetry.  The 
improbable  has  been  accomplished;  he  has  made  poetry  out  of  the  very  material  that  has 
refused  to  yield  it  for  almost  a  score  of  years."  —  Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

"  Originality,  force,  distinction,  and  deep  knowledge  of  the  human  heart." —  Chicago 
Re  co  rd-  He  ra  Id. 

"  They  are  truly  great  pieces."  —  Kentucky  Post. 

"  A  vigor  and  sincerity  rare  in  modern  English  literature."  —  The  Independent. 

"John  Masefield  is  the  man  of  the  hour,  and  the  man  of  to-morrow  too,  in  poetry  and 
in  the  playwriting  craft."  —  John  Galsworthy. 

"  —  recreates  a  wholly  new  drama  of  existence."  —  William  Stanley  Braithwaitk, 
N.  Y.  Times. 


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The  Daffodil  Fields 

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"  Neither  in  the  design  nor  in  the  telling  did  or  could  '  Enoch 
Arden1  come  near  the  artistic  truth  of  'The  Daffodil  Fields.'"  — 
Sir  Quiller-Couch,  Cambridge  University. 

A  Mainsail  Haul 

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As  a  sailor  before  the  mast  Masefield  has  traveled  the  world  over. 
Many  of  the  tales  in  this  volume  are  his  own  experiences  written 
with  the  same  dramatic  fidelity  displayed  in  "  Dauber.1' 

The  Tragedy  of  Pompey 

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A  play  such  as  only  the  author  of  "Nan"  could  have  written. 
Tense  in  situation  and  impressive  in  its  poetry  it  conveys  Mase- 
field's  genius  in  the  handling  of  the  dramatic  form. 


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